MAY 2019 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

The forced-birthers are picking up steam. With God on their side, how can they lose? Here’s a couple samplings:

1. Michigan State Senator Kim LaSata. Everyone knows that God hates women who get abortions. In fact, one of the earliest books in the Hebrew Bible—Numbers—has a “pleasant” story about God’s priests giving women a special “potion” that would induce an abortion. According to the Bible, it was a punishment for adultery. So, abortion is OK if God wants it done to punish women.

Michigan state Sen. LaSata doesn’t read those kinds of bibles. She reads her own special bible and has big thoughts and feelings about what God wants. She and other forced-birther zealots in the Michigan state legislature have been trying to get their own abortion ban through.

With Alabama’s decision to outlaw abortions in virtually all cases, forced-birther types like Sen. LaSata want everyone to know that they are overjoyed by their victory in protecting the “sanctity of life.” The Detroit Free Press explains that during examination of medical experts, LaSata became angry after testimony that by banning standard second-trimester procedures for abortion, the Michigan legislature would be putting women into painful and dangerous scenarios. Sen. LaSata’s response was the kind of Jesus-empathizing you might expect from a good Christian like herself:

“Of course, it should be hard! And the procedure should be painful! And you should allow God to take over!! And you should deliver that baby!"

LaSata has talked about her own personal abortion story, where she attempted to get an abortion, it didn’t work, and she ended up giving birth to a stillborn baby. She called the experience an intervention by God, forcing her to go through with what must have been a truly emotional and physically brutal experience.

It seems that what LaSata wants is for other women to experience, regardless of the situation, the trauma she experienced. In her mind, based on her words, she thinks that God did that to her so other women should get to experience God’s work in the same way. Bring on the pain.

APRIL 2019 IGNOMINIOUS ABSURDITY OF THE MONTH: THE IGGY

1. The Texas State Legislature. The Texas secretary of state’s recent effort to target non-citizens for voting illegally was a giant mess—of 95,000 names flagged as non-citizens who had registered to vote, it turned out that thousands had become citizens before registering, and were doing absolutely nothing wrong. The state faces lawsuits over the effort to demonize immigrants, but that’s not stopping Texas Republicans from doubling down. Two bills in the Texas state Senate would force local voter registrars to strip their voting rolls of everyone who had at any point said they weren’t a citizen.

Under the Republican bills, people who had recently become citizens and registered to vote—as is their right—would have that right taken away without being notified so that they could set things straight. And voter registrars who failed to kick a group of mostly legal voters off the rolls would face penalties and possible removal from office.

Not that we needed any further evidence of how much Republicans want to suppress voting, but wow. Immediately after a list of supposed illegal voters was shown to be overwhelmingly a list of legal voters, Republicans are moving to use the same standard to disenfranchise voters without warning or recourse. They’re evil, they’re desperate … and they might prevent a lot of people from voting.