I’ve long held that on the issue of abortion, Republicans are the dog that chased after the car and finally caught the wheel, which is to say, their grift fully relied on never repealing Roe (oh, but those f*ckers stacked the Supreme Court and did) but merely fundraising off the notion of it, and now that they had to put their money where their mouth is, they don’t really know what to do—especially because (surprise!) abortion is not nearly as divisive as they would have led you to believe all those years.
In fact, the issue is winning the Democrats elections handily (I see you, Wisconsin!), and now Republicans would very much like all of us to move on from abortion and focus on “real” issues, ok? Because what better way to avoid talking about subjects where their positions and actions are deeply unpopular than to suddenly claim—despite years of big talk—that it’s not even a “real” issue? So can everyone just chill, ignore bodily autonomy, and just move on, please?
It’s not like every month there’s a new fresh hell that faces more than half the population of this country and control over our bodies, the latest, of course, being a judge with literally no medical training deciding the FDA couldn’t authorize a pill for use in this country, one of the purposes of which is a safe abortion. Nope. Nothing to see here.
You could see Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) tell Dana Bash just this on CNN recently. It … did not go his way.
What are the other things that are happening in this world you might wonder? Gun control? Inflation? Lol. No, silly. This is a Republican. Obviously, the “real issue” he’s talking about is immigration. From a recap of Gonzales’ CNN babbling on HuffPost:
“No, I think that it’s important that we take care of women, it’s important that we have real discussions on women’s health care,” he answered before switching focus to his concerns about the U.S.-Mexico border. “Get off the abortion, get off the, you know, the abortion conversation.”
“I’ve got a district that’s turned upside-down due to this border crisis,” he added. “There’s everyday people that are impacted.”
According to this guy, people can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, which is to say “worry about their bodily autonomy and a nonexistent ‘border crisis’ at the same time.” Then he went on to say that Republicans could defund the FDA. I kid you not. Per HuffPo:
Gonzales also said that Congress could “defund” the FDA if the Biden administration ignores the Texas judge’s ruling that blocks the pill’s access.
“The House Republicans have the power of the purse. And if the administration wants to not live up to this ruling, then we’re going to have a problem,” he said. “It may come to a point where House Republicans on the appropriation side have to defund FDA programs that don’t make sense.”
The thing about a threat being effective is that it needs to be plausible, and look, we know it took 15 damn votes to elect a Republican Speaker of the House, so already, the chances of them working together for a common goal are slim, and as far as I can tell, those idiots have done basically nothing since then but hold hearings. The House Republicans haven’t even released their budget yet. You have bigger fish to fry here, Mr. Representative, than threaten the FDA (also side note, drug manufacturers fund approximately 46% of the FDA’s budget. How do I know this and a sitting member of Congress doesn’t?!)
So sure, go ahead, attempt to defund programs, and go hand some swing districts to the Democrats because again, abortion is a not a winning topic for the Republicans.
I cannot stress enough that these Republicans are going on cable news shows threatening to do more harm to people over abortion—despite it supposedly not being a “real” issue that they want to talk about—instead of releasing their budget, which is, even by Rep. Gonzales’s own admission, like, their main job. It is baffling. I genuinely think they are trying to manifest a budget through vision boards and mean-spirited ideas, instead of actually doing the work, and think that by attacking abortion, some grand idea will come to them. This is not how any of it works, but this is what you get when you elect incompetent people to lead you just because they hate the same people you do.
Also, as a reminder, our government also needs to get its act together and raise the debt ceiling, but the Republicans are holding that hostage, too, over nothing. So, to recap, they have decided to keep dying on the hill of abortion, have not done basically the one constitutionally mandated job the House has to do (the budget must originate in the House), and are threatening the Federal agency that is in charge of making sure your food is safe. Good to know we have a functioning government. Only 574 days until the 2024 election. Not like I’m counting or anything.
(featured image: gradyreese/Getty Images)
