GOP Misogyny For You And Me

Our friend Georgia Republican state Rep. Bobby Franklin (who already thinks drivers licenses are too much of a government imposition) is back, this time with a bill so terribly written that under the legislation a woman who has a miscarriage could face the death penalty.

As Bon would say, I kid you not.  MoJo's Jen Phillips:

Under Rep. Franklin's bill, HB 1, women who miscarry could become felons if they cannot prove that there was "no human involvement whatsoever in the causation" of their miscarriage. There is no clarification of what "human involvement" means, and this is hugely problematic as medical doctors do not know exactly what causes miscarriages. Miscarriages are estimated to terminate up to a quarter of all pregnancies and the Mayo Clinic says that "the actual number is probably much higher because many miscarriages occur so early in pregnancy that a woman doesn't even know she's pregnant. Most miscarriages occur because the fetus isn't developing normally."


Holding women criminally liable for a totally natural, common biological process is cruel and non-sensical. Even more ridiculous, the bill holds women responsible for protecting their fetuses from "the moment of conception," despite the fact that pregnancy tests aren't accurate until at least 3 weeks after conception. Unless Franklin (who is not a health professional) invents a revolutionary intrauterine conception alarm system, it's unclear how exactly the state of Georgia would enforce that rule other than holding all possibly-pregnant women under lock and key.

It's crazy.  This bill shows complete disregard for logic, medicine, and more importantly a complete disregard for women as anything more than birthing tanks, a bill that simultaneously says "We must do everything we can to protect our precious fetuses" and then treats women as potentially faulty equipment that must be repurposed if they fail at their only duty of reproduction.

Pro-life (because all abortions are murder and murder is bad) and the death penalty (because a miscarriage is a sin and you must pay with your life) in the same bill, folks....plus a healthy dose of tenth amendment nullification nonsense!

The bill contends that Georgia is exempt from upholding Supreme Court decisions like Roe v. Wade because the Constitution's Article I only governs five crimes: counterfeiting, piracy, high seas felonies, offenses against the law of nations, and treason. According to the bill, since murder is not one of those five crimes, it should be solely governed by the state.

It's the perfect wingnut bill.   Perfectly insane, that is.