The modern GOP is now willing to empower and reward a rapist and his family if it means they can control a woman’s body, end abortion rights, and implement minority rule for white Christian men.
You might think that’s an outlandish and hyperbolic statement, but then again you probably haven’t read Idaho’s S.B. 1309 bill, which is expected to be signed by Republican Gov. Brad Little. It will go into effect 30 days after signing, and there are multiple copycat bills moving forward, such as the one in Oklahoma.
This latest bill from hell is modeled after the Texas SB8 “heartbeat bill,” which makes it illegal to terminate a pregnancy after six weeks—even though most women don’t even realize they are pregnant by then. That’s precisely the point. The Supreme Court, whose extremist majority was intentionally vetted and picked by Republican activists to overturn Roe v. Wade, has refused to intervene in the Texas case, thereby signaling the end of abortion rights and galvanizing copycat bills across red states.
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Idaho has decided to pick up the baton from Texas and advance the GOP’s death march. It’s sweetening the pot, allowing vigilantes to sue abortion providers and win a lucrative $20,000 bounty plus legal fees—double the size of the Lone Star State’s reward, proving that everything isn’t always bigger in Texas. Idaho Republicans are also allowing the father and relatives of a “preborn child” to veto an abortion, effectively allowing a father to force his adult daughter to carry an unwanted pregnancy.
Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern of Slate did an excellent breakdown of the bill and the profound ways it further victimizes the victim. In order to have a legal abortion, a rape victim is required to file a police report, which many women avoid for fear of retaliation from abusers, the prospect of being shamed, and the very real possibility that the legal system won’t believe them. If the woman terminates her pregnancy without filing a police report, the rapist’s family, including up to 10 relatives, can still sue the provider and collect a $20,000 bounty per relative. This is “pro-life.”
For the modern GOP, it pays to be soft on rape, but hard on women’s rights. According to Lithwick and Stern,“Idaho has not only nullified [Planned Parenthood v. Casey’s] protections for abuse victims, even before the Supreme Court has pronounced Casey dead. It’s also empowered the families of those denied a veto in Casey cash prizes for exercising that veto.”
I asked Emily Halvorson, the press officer of state media campaigns for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, if it’s fair to conclude that this GOP bill does more to protect a rapist and his supporters than it does to protect vulnerable women.
“I wouldn’t say this legislation is protective of anyone, but certainly it does not offer any protections to pregnant people seeking abortion, and would be especially threatening to survivors of rape and to people experiencing domestic or inter-partner violence,” she replied. In addition to allowing family members of the rapist to bring a lawsuit on the rapist’s behalf, Halvorson mentioned Idaho’s SB 1309 would “otherwise allow an abuser to sue a provider so long as the pregnancy was not itself the result of a rape.”
But don’t worry. It gets worse.
Moving from Idaho to Missouri, we have H.B. 2810 introduced by Republican state Rep. Brian Seitz that would make it a felony punishable by 10 years to life in prison to perform an abortion after 10 weeks of pregnancy.
One would assume that Republicans giving women 10 weeks instead of six weeks to terminate their pregnancy is a form of compassion and enlightenment, but not in this case where even ectopic pregnancies are not allowed. These pregnancies, which are not viable, are the leading cause of death for women in their first trimester as the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus and often leads to hemorrhaging if not aborted. But Republicans will never let science and women’s health stand in the way of their zealous, regressive crusade. If this bill is passed, the only choice a woman will have is the following: jail or death.
Rep. Seitz, without irony or self-awareness, says, “This bill is about protecting life.” He left out whose life, but we all know women aren’t on the multiple-choice. Unfortunately, he’s not an outlier.
In 2019, Ohio state Rep. John Becker, a Republican (surprise!), proposed a bill that “would have prohibited insurers from covering abortion services but provided an exception for doctors to ‘reimplant’ an ectopic pregnancy into a woman’s uterus.” Rep. Becker later conceded he hadn’t studied whether such a procedure was possible (it isn’t), but why let reality and the laws of nature get in the way of controlling women? He was advised by Barry Sheets, a lobbyist for the Right to Life Action Coalition of Ohio. Adherence to science, facts, data, and studies aren’t a strong suit for anti-abortion advocates, and they certainly don’t seem to be of much importance to Republican lawmakers anymore.
With the upcoming midterms expecting to be a rout for Republicans, it seems any attempt to save Roe v. Wade is bleak and the latest GOP onslaught against women’s rights will only accelerate—even though the right to an abortion is supported by the majority of Americans.
“Supporters need to make their voices heard,” Halvorson told me. “Community abortion funds, health care workers, and organizers on the ground are leading this fight in states across the country—as they have for years. Supporters of abortion rights need to support those organizations and donate to them to help patients get care outside of the state.”
Right on cue, Missouri Republicans are now considering making it illegal to “aid or abet” out-of-state abortions. It seems Republicans find remarkable ways to be creative and productive when it comes to creating new ways to control women’s bodies, even as they are unable to provide any solutions to income inequality, COVID relief, health care, climate change, and child poverty. The modern GOP is pro-fossil fuels but anti-renewable energy, pro-free speech but anti-Critical Race Theory, and pro-family but aggressively anti-women.
But, don’t worry, they’re still pro-life—as long as the baby is in the womb—and to prove their fevered commitment to their radicalized base, they’re now even pro-rapist.
