Washington Post opinion writer Jennifer Rubin said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “The Last Word” that several states have enacted abortion bans that were like “something out of Communist China.”
Discussing Kansas voters passing “No” on a ballot measure that would have removed language in the state constitution protecting abortion, guest-host Zerlina Maxwell asked, “Did the anti-abortion movement perhaps underestimate the backlash that they would receive after Dobbs?”
Rubin said, “I actually don’t think it was unintended. This is exactly what they think of women. This is exactly what they think of abortion. The Supreme Court put no value whatsoever on women’s fundamental rights, their health or their lives. This is the natural consequence of what they did. I think these stories have been deeply disturbing, but more importantly than a specific case here or there, they’ve sustained a conversation among women, among men, people who normally would not be discussing this issue or discussing politics at all. And now they’re looking at this, and they’re having this conversation. Are our politicians going to force someone to remain pregnant and force them to give birth? This sounds like something out of communist China. In a sense, it’s tyranny.”
He added, “It’s not only national Republicans who are out of touch. All those national lawmakers who’ve been passing these bands, and the governors who’ve who have been signing it, they are completely out of touch with the people in their state. Those people, many of them, are going to be on the ballot as well and Democrats are certainly going to point out that state lawmakers, governors, all sorts of people up and down the ballot have been promising to enforce these draconian laws. We have prosecutors, the attorney general of Indiana, who’s going to go after a doctor who performed an abortion for a ten-year-old rape victim. All of these people are going to be accountable. They will face the voters, and this is real. This is not now hypothetical.”
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