Republicans spent a long time staking out more and more excessive positions on abortion, whereas on the identical time taking pictures down family-supporting initiatives like baby tax credit, paid parental depart, prenatal care, and government-subsidized baby care. However now, because it turns into abundantly clear that their excessive forced-birtherism is marginally much less fashionable than the uncooked vegan tapas sales space at CPAC, they’re attempting to fake they’re not Republicans.
Now the GOP’s conspicuous flip-floppery has discovered its exemplar in U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake. Lake—a key proponent of the Huge Lie who denied the election results in her own losing Arizona gubernatorial bid—needs us to consider she’s had a real change of coronary heart in terms of forcing her would-be constituents to offer delivery to infants they don’t need.
In a brand new interview with NBC Information, Lake tried to distance herself from her previous forced-birth positions like Quint scurrying away from the shark at the end of “Jaws.” Possibly the interview wasn’t fairly as ugly as that scene, however then “Jaws” wasn’t filmed by means of six layers of gauze and enough Vaseline to squeeze a Clydesdale by means of a cat door.
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Kari Lake, the Arizona Republican candidate operating for Senate, has proclaimed abortion “the final word sin,” mentioned abortion drugs ought to be unlawful, and praised legal guidelines to limit reproductive rights in different conservative-led states. In August, Lake was in Ohio to marketing campaign for a poll measure that will have made it harder to go a constitutional modification enshrining the suitable to abortion.
So does that imply she nonetheless takes a principled stand towards abortion? As a result of for many years it’s been an article of religion amongst right-wing Republicans that human life begins at conception, and the destruction of even one human embryo so offends God, He’s continuously engaged on new lethal pure disasters to punish us with.
A few of these will kill a lot of considerate, compassionate, demonstrably human People, after all, however as they are saying, you’ll be able to’t save an embryo with out breaking just a few eggheads.
Now, Lake, in an unique interview with NBC Information, is in search of to average her place in a means that acknowledges the tough spot that Republicans discover themselves after the Supreme Court docket overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade choice that enshrined abortion rights nationally.
Lake mentioned she believes Arizona will decide on a rule that gives entry to abortion as much as 15 to 24 weeks. She known as the state’s present 15-week restrict “an excellent regulation,” and instructed NBC Information that she doesn’t help Arizona’s controversial territorial rule, a near-total ban on abortion that’s underneath dispute within the courts. As lately as November 2023, Lake responded to a question about her earlier help for the territorial ban, saying, “I haven’t modified.”
Oh no, you haven’t modified a whit, Kari. As soon as a liar, at all times a liar.
After all, in terms of Lake’s newest pronouncements, it is easy sufficient to learn between the lines.
For example, Lake is now saying federal lawmakers ought to keep a hands-off stance in terms of abortion—which is fairly handy contemplating she’s now operating for federal workplace and would favor to not reply questions on abortion.
Lake now insists “the states ought to be deciding” in terms of abortion restrictions. However when pressed by NBC Information, she “declined to weigh in on whether or not she would vote to guard [in vitro fertilization] nationwide if she is elected.” Let’s simply take a wild guess on that one, as a result of if she’s something like the opposite mendacity Republicans at the moment attempting to distance themselves from the Alabama Supreme Court docket’s latest wacky IVF choice, she almost certainly wouldn’t.
However hey, if Lake has her druthers, wealthy Republican pro-lifers will nonetheless have entry to all of the reproductive well being care they want within the blue state of their selection!
“If one state has a ban, one other state may have abortion, and so girls are going to have the ability to entry abortion,” she instructed NBC Information.
In the meantime, Lake is now attempting to fake she cares about supporting kids and their households after they’re disgorged into our freshly fascist vale of tears. In reality, parts of her NBC interview virtually made her sound like a Democrat!
In response to NBC Information, she’s now “centered on discovering options to ease the burden of moms and pregnant girls … and vowed to work throughout the aisle to assist go child bonuses, extra baby tax credit, and paid household depart.”
“What we have to do is basically begin supporting girls and giving them true selections,” she mentioned. “We have to prioritize. We speak about being pro-family, and it’s about time we put the cash the place our mouth is.”
She added, “Congress has spent virtually $200 billion in Ukraine and needed to ship one other $75 billion lately. As a substitute, we are able to make investments that cash into American households by means of child bonuses, prenatal care, parental assets and lessons and baby care.”
Effectively, we already noticed a sturdy growth of the baby tax credit score, due to President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats. It lifted millions of vulnerable children and families out of poverty—however after all Republicans got rid of it, as a result of, nicely, they’re Republicans.
So it’s only a wee bit infuriating that they’re now making these empty guarantees to allow them to get elected and continue lowering rich people’s taxes.
RELATED STORY: A national abortion ban is definitely on the 2024 ballot
After all, Lake’s Potemkin coverage prescriptions are only a small tip of the iceberg Republicans are fixing to plow into come November. They’ve but to efficiently thread the needle on abortion rights post-Dobbs, and it’s our sacred mission to maintain slapping their arms away after they strive.
In spite of everything, they’re about to run Donald Trump for president: the man who eradicated reproductive rights for tens of hundreds of thousands of People, brags about having performed so, and is at the moment mulling a national abortion ban of his own.
However liars gonna lie, and it’s as much as us to inform the plain fact: Electing Republicans to federal workplace will solely additional endanger reproductive rights—in addition to entry to contraception. As Daily Kos’ Joan McCarter reported in November, a nationwide abortion ban is unquestionably on the poll this 12 months, and a vote for Trump wouldn’t simply grease the skids for an much more excessive SCOTUS, it might additionally instantly threaten People’ entry to extensively used contraceptives.
The Heritage Basis has set out an ambitious totalitarian agenda for the subsequent Republican president, whoever it is likely to be. Don’t suppose that ladies’s our bodies are exempt from their plans, not by an extended shot. They’ve been working on a plan to make use of a Nineteenth-century regulation written to forestall girls from acquiring contraceptives, permitting the subsequent Republican administration to outlaw most abortions.
The 1873 Comstock Act prohibits the mailing of contraceptives, “lewd” writings, and any “instrument, substance, drug, medication, or factor” that may very well be utilized in an abortion. Whereas it’s been dormant for the reason that U.S. Supreme Court docket’s Griswold v. Connecticut choice in 1965, the regulation continues to be on the books. It has skilled a revival within the twenty first century GOP. Wing-nut U.S. District Choose Matthew Kacsmaryk cited it when he dominated final spring to dam the Meals and Drug Administration from permitting mifepristone, the capsule utilized in more than half of U.S. abortions, to be despatched by means of the U.S. mail. That’s nonetheless being litigated.
Now that 1873 is again in vogue, the Heritage Basis argues that the subsequent president can act unilaterally to just do what Kacsmaryk ordered. Comstock “unambiguously prohibits mailing abortion medication,” and a Republican president should “implement federal regulation towards suppliers and distributors of [abortion] drugs.”
After all, Republicans’ makes an attempt to pander to independents and suburban girls on abortion entry may very well be a double-edged sword. At what level do all their concessions to frequent sense and political expediency begin to demoralize their rabidly right-wing base? If Trump is now not standing on a debate stage promising to appoint pro-life judges, will true-believing pro-lifers nonetheless flock to the polls on his behalf?
In the event that they do, it can solely be as a result of they know Republicans are mendacity their ruddy arses off about these points. So how pathetic would it not be if they noticed by means of the ruse and we didn’t? We are able to’t let that occur. Now greater than ever, we have to be vigilant and make our (truthful) voices heard.
Because the marketing campaign for Rep. Ruben Gallego, Lake’s Democratic opponent, notes, you merely can’t consider Lake—or any Republican, for that matter—in terms of their public statements on this situation.
“Kari Lake will say something to get elected, however her actions are clear: She helps banning abortion with out exceptions for rape or incest and can ban treatment abortion,” Gallego’s marketing campaign spokeswoman Hannah Goss instructed NBC Information. “Arizonans gained’t be fooled by her makes an attempt to erase her document.”
Republican strategist Barrett Marson appears to agree. “She will learn the polling and see that she has to stroll again,” he instructed NBC Information, earlier than conceding that her earlier stances on abortion gained’t be forgotten.
“2022 Kari Lake is 2024 Kari Lake’s worst enemy.”
Take a look at Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, together with the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link.
