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It’s hard to take this stuff seriously, but it’s impacting public policy and so here we go. Republicans are trying to use the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell to call for more regulations on abortion. After Democrats rejected a Republican resolution to focus on all abortion clinics going back to 2008, the Right got hysterical and projected their gun fetish and toadying to gun lobbyists onto Democrats.
On Fox today, guest Chris Plante said Democrats are so in “lockstep with the abortion industry” that they are “looking for a way to throw a bucket of cold water on this (Dr. Gosnell) …. make it go away.”
Watch here via Media Matters:
Chris Plante continued, “I wonder if you ask them to condemn Charles Manson or this psychopath in Cleveland, whether they could agree with that. You know, Ariel Castro might get the hospitality of the year award from Democrats in Congress.”
Plante further suggested that Democrats want to “water it (the Republicans’ resolution) down” and turn it into a big government program. Man who kidnapped and raped young girls conflated with Democrats. Check. Charles Manson conflation. Check. Big government Boogeyman. Check. Coherent argument and consistent values? FAIL.
Plante was trying to suggest that because Democrats countered several Republican efforts to call for a witch hunt of abortion clinics on the taxpayers’ dime, they are your basic Evil bad guys.
Plante is doing what people do who have no argument – he’s throwing emotional bombs and conflating the other side with the most heinous current bad guy in the news for no reason other than it serves to demonize his imaginary opponent and distract from the facts.
The fact is that there is no such thing as an “abortion industry”. There are doctors who provide abortions in spite of the threats on their lives, because they believe that a woman should have access to the legal procedure in a safe, sanitary environment. Planned Parenthood is not an “abortion industry”, and the majority of what they actually do has nothing to do with abortions. Women’s rights do not have huge, powerful, corporate lobbyists fighting for them in DC. If they could pay what the NRA does, Republicans would not have made history by proposing the most bills to restrict a woman’s freedom over the past two years.
Gosnell is an abortion provider from Philadelphia who is charged with first-degree murder for killing four babies and third-degree murder for killing one woman because it is a crime to do so. Imagine if Dr. Gosnell’s atrocities were ONE mass shooting — one “bad actor”/”lone wolf” who did a lot of damage.
Reps. Stephen Fincher (R-TN), Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) co-signed a resolution to start investigating all abortion clinics, after Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-UT) similar resolution was blocked in the Senate — because, Gosnell(!!!). In fact, Republicans are so upset about abortion that they are demanding state health agencies turn over all abortion regulator’s records since 2008.
“The criminal investigation and trial of [Gosnell] raises troubling questions about the practices of abortion clinics, and whether state departments of health are aware, or even conducting appropriate monitoring, of these facilities,” lawmakers wrote in the letter, which Blackburn also signed, among others.
We might be broke, but we have money and resources (even during as we operate under the Republican sequester cuts) to comb through every single report since 2008 when it comes to abortion. Fires, explosions and oil leaks – not so much. Those are “accidents”, whereas because one doctor allegedly broke the law, all doctors who perform abortions are now suspects (all other doctors who have killed several patients are off the hook for inexplicable reasons).
Republicans somehow justify going on a witch hunt against the providers of one personal freedom while refusing to even impose background checks on providers of on another “personal freedom” (aka, gun lobby/NRA). This is why they keep using the term “abortion industry”. It smears Democrats with what the majority of Republicans are actually doing.
Democrats countered the Republican abortion doctor witch hunt bill with one sponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) condemning “all incidents of abusive, unsanitary, or illegal healthcare practices.” Blumenthal objected to Lee’s resolution, pointing out that the Democratic proposal “will call upon our colleagues to condemn these actions in all healthcare settings — whether clinics, hospitals, nursing homes, or dental offices across the country and so with that I object.”
By broadening the resolution to include all healthcare settings, not just abortion clinics, Plante thinks that Democrats are just like Charles Manson and Ariel Castro.
But of course, the GOP is not interested in broadening their bill. The deaths of grownups and children due to malpractice are not enticing, plus the healthcare lobbyists do not approve. Thus they announced that they “didn’t have time” (again) to read the Democrats’ bill.
Catch the logic fail: Guns are legal even though many misuse them, because we can’t hold the actions of many “bad apples” against “law abiding” gun owners, but one instance of an abortion doctor allegedly misusing his legal right to practice abortion and all abortion clinics need to be investigated.
The fact of the matter is that the Gosnell case only reinforces why abortion must be kept legal, as when it was not, these kinds of atrocities occurred frequently. It is legal so that it can be regulated. As their Benghazi conspiracy dies on the vine, Republicans are back hard at work on their general smear campaign. Vote Republican because Democrats are Castro and Manson!
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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