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This. I’m sick of people intentionally mischaracterizing what the man said and, worst of all, relentlessly defaming the very real mothers and very real families and very real doctors who have had to navigate these rare and heartbreaking circumstances themselves. Just stop it.
Like, the merits of the bill are certainly up for debate. You can make the case that the terms were too open-ended. But you can do that without accusing its supporters of advocating infanticide. They’re not.
I've been on the receiving end of these bad-faith arguments for years. When I wrote a piece in 2016 arguing that strengthening the social safety net helps reduce the abortion rate, a major conservative publication claimed I believe "babies are better off dead than poor"...
Here's the piece. If you can find that argument ANYWHERE, let me know. Because that's not what I believe. rachelheldevans.com/blog/pro-life-…
When I tweeted about how the racism of the far-right (Trump, Coulter, Carlson) makes me doubt how serious they are about caring for the women & children of color who would be disproportionately affected by criminalizing abortion, I was accused of "supporting eugenics"...
In each of these cases, the hate mail I received was so graphic and so hateful, (and deeply painful personally, having suffered a miscarriage), I struggled with anxiety & depression in their wake. YOU CAN MAKE A STRONG PRO-LIFE CASE WITHOUT LYING & HARASSMENT, FOLKS. Try it.
This is why it's frustrating to see a bunch of dudes in my mentions decrying my "silence" on NY and VA. Their whole strategy is to bully you into saying something, and if it's not exactly what they want to hear, they call you a baby killer. Even if you're pro-life in your ethic.
We've got to stop punishing one another for having nuanced views on complicated ethical issues. Not everyone who falls into the pro-choice camp is pro-abortion, not everyone who falls into the pro-life camp is anti-woman & not everyone who falls somewhere in between is spineless.
If you know exactly what you would do if a scan revealed your baby was missing his kidneys & much of his brain & doctors said terminating would spare him prolonged suffering in the few hours of life he might get after birth, congratulations. Because I don’t.
