Republican "witch hunt": Trump and the GOP need a scapegoat. Naturally, they attack women

https://www.salon.com/2019/02/27/republican-witch-hunt-trump-and-the-gop-need-a-scapegoat-naturally-they-attack-women/

Amanda Marcotte at Salon

"SNIP.....

On Monday, Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, citing completely made-up fears of "infanticide", championed the misleadingly named Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. The bill, which addresses a situation that doesn't exist, failed to pass.

.....

In the heyday of witch hunts, anger over women's growing economic and social independence led accusations that they were cavorting with Satan and calling down infernal curses upon their neighbors. Nowadays, anger over women's growing economic and social independence leads to accusations that women are callously murdering viable babies.

It's a lie, of course. According to the Guttmacher Institute, four out of five abortions occur before 11 weeks of gestation, before the embryo has even officially developed into a fetus. Only 1.3 percent of abortions occur after the 20th week of gestation. The percentage of abortions that are performed post-viability is so small that it literally doesn't register on surveys of abortion in the United States. This vanishingly small number of abortions are performed mostly, if not exclusively, out of medical necessity, and usually because the fetus has birth defects incompatible with life.

The only people this bill could affect are families with babies who are born alive but clearly dying. Its only possible result would be to deprive those babies and their families of comfort by forcing fruitless and painful medical interventions.


....SNIP"