Posted on 07/08/2022 6:24:19 AM PDT by Morgana
As if mourning that abortion is no longer the law of the land wasn’t grisly enough, many in the media have spread outlandish and false claims that women will now be jailed for suffering miscarriages and stillbirths. MSNBC’s Joy Reid proudly took up the standard on Wednesday night’s episode of The ReidOut, where she used a trio of exceptional cases to fearmonger about the Handmaid’s Tale-esque rule under which American women are supposedly about to live.
Reid began by citing a piece from BuzzFeed News, “Back in April, even before the toppling of Roe, a Texas woman had been charged with murder for allegedly inducing her abortion. Prosecutors later acknowledged that there was no legal basis for the charges, but the case is a cautionary tale.”
This was followed by a segment from The New Yorker, “Five years ago, a black mother of three from Mississippi experienced a stillbirth at roughly 36 weeks. She was jailed after police found that she had searched for abortion information on her phone. The Washington Post reports that her search history helped prosecutors charge her with, quote, “killing her infant child.””
Reid’s third and final example came from abroad, “In El Salvador, women have been incarcerated for decades for not producing a live birth. Like Teodora del Carmen Vasquez, who ended up spending more than ten years in prison for what she always insisted was a stillbirth.”
It’s good to know that Reid thinks the U.S. judicial system is on par with El Salvador’s in terms of protecting the rights of the defendant and ensuring a fair trial is conducted.
Reid then shifted gears to focus on how all of these unfortunate outliers will become common practice, “Americans must also confront such widespread human rights violations as a radical right devours bodily autonomy in this country, where the prosecution of women suspected of purposefully or accidentally ending a pregnancy could become standard practice.”
No state is criminalizing miscarriages or stillbirth and Reid’s false equivalence between miscarriage and procured abortion is irresponsible at best and dangerous at worst.
After mourning the closing of the last abortion mill in Mississippi, Reid turned the fearmongering up to 11, “But what's even worse than a woman prosecuted for a miscarriage or stillbirth? Death. In states with strict abortion laws, doctors may hesitate before offering essential lifesaving measures when a woman is bleeding out during a miscarriage. Because remember, the doctors face fears of prosecution, too.”
If there are doctors who truly are hesitating in these situations, then they need to be educated about what does and does not truly constitute an induced abortion.
Reid’s argument intentionally mischaracterizes the pro-life position. Nobody in the pro-life movement nor anyone involved in passing anti-abortion laws is looking to take away women’s rights, they are simply asserting that the child in the womb is a separate body from the mother and is thus entitled to the right to life.
Spectacularly, Reid’s argument also mischaracterizes the pro-abortion position, which has morphed in recent years from “safe, legal, and rare” to “on-demand and without apology.”
Using a very small number of legal mishaps (which didn’t get far in the American legal system) to defend a practice that could rightfully be understood as child murder is disingenuous, dishonest, disgusting, and absolutely par for the course for MSNBC.
This brazen bit of disinformation was made possible by ServPro and Nutrisystem. Their contact information is linked.
Click “Expand” to see the relevant transcript.
MSNBC’s The ReidOut 07/06/22 7:46:17 PM ET
JOY REID: Back in April, even before the toppling of Roe, a Texas woman had been charged with murder for allegedly inducing her abortion. Prosecutors later acknowledged that there was no legal basis for the charges, but the case is a cautionary tale.
Five years ago, a black mother of three from Mississippi experienced a stillbirth at roughly 36 weeks. She was jailed after police found that she had searched for abortion information on her phone. The Washington Post reports that her search history helped prosecutors charge her with, quote, “killing her infant child.”
In El Salvador, women have been incarcerated for decades for not producing a live birth. Like Teodora del Carmen Vasquez, who ended up spending more than ten years in prison for what she always insisted was a stillbirth.
Americans must also confront such widespread human rights violations as a radical right devours bodily autonomy in this country, where the prosecution of women suspected of purposefully or accidentally ending a pregnancy could become standard practice. A question we must seriously mull over these days is how long before an American woman is prosecuted for an abortion? And no, this isn't a dystopian storyline anymore, but we wish that it were.
Today is a dark day in the fight, as the last abortion clinic in Mississippi has closed. The Jackson Women's Health Organization — nicknamed the pink house for its bubble gum-covered — covered — colored exterior — where protesters clashed in front of these essential, very valuable medical facility, which now serves as a symbol of what the women in Mississippi have lost, the last clinic shuttered, done.
Instituting a near-total abortion ban in a state where a Republican governor does not support or even believe in exceptions for rape.
[Cuts to clip]
TATE REEVES [On Fox News Sunday, 7/3/22]: I don't believe an exception for rape will actually — uh, make it through the Mississippi legislature and make it to my desk. Uh — again, there's a lot of effort, — uh, particularly in — in Washington and other places, mainly by the — the Democrats — uh, to try to talk only about the real — um, small, minor number of exceptions that may exist.
[End of clip]
REID: Wow. But what's even worse than a woman prosecuted for a miscarriage or stillbirth? Death.
In states with strict abortion laws, doctors may hesitate before offering essential lifesaving measures when a woman is bleeding out during a miscarriage. Because remember, the doctors face fears of prosecution, too. That's why activists are setting off alarm bells over the lack of urgency on the national level. So what can be done about it, and why it’s the governors who are on the front line. Stay with us.
The US Disinformation Office would have never addressed this disinformation.
She must get special e-mails from the Communist Party AKA Democrat Central Committee.
What a whopper Reid! Here’s a true statement though... “peaceful flag waving protestors HAVE BEEN ARRESTED and kept in solitary confinement without trials for over a year now. Hundreds of folks were arrested for being invited into,the Capitol building and doing so peacefully!
Now cry us a river Reid!
Lying is what dead soul media do. Reid lies as easily as she breathes.
Th3y would have investigated whomever reported her disinformation, and garland would,have declared that person a domestic terrorists likely
She was jailed after police found that she had searched for abortion information on her phone. The Washington Post reports that her search history helped prosecutors charge her with, quote, “killing her infant child.”
Part of that is disturbing. Yes, Reid was in error that the woman was in legal danger for having a stillbirth, which was not true.
But I am of a mind that our antibortion laws should be about the illegality of providing abortions, except in the exceptions provided by law (such as possibly to save the life of the mother), BUT that the purpose and intent of the law is not and should not be about making criminals of the mothers. So, what I do find distubing was the search of her phone and criminalizing her for a record on her phone about searching for abortion services. That search is not the performance of an abortion, any more than searching for pot sales in a state where pot is illegal constitutes smoking pot.
If women are criminalized under new state abortion laws, the people like Reid will still have good cause - in my view - to be against those parrticular abortion laws. And those state laws with the highest possible level of abortion restrictions can’t be thinking they ought to go after one of their state’s citizens who travels out of state to get an abortion. The attempted application of such laws should be restricted to what happens within their own state, and not trying to reach out-of-state activities by residents of their state.
People cross state lines all the time to buy liqupr or cigarettes cheaper just across the border. They are not hunted down like criminals, unless it is found they are trying to sell those goods in-state to someone else.
“Conservatism” in law (as to desired outcomes) is a denial of real conservatism when it attempts overreach that is not conservative at all. Conservativism in law is not just the motive of the law, but its application. Laws the restrict citizens of state A, are not laws that can be thought to restrict activities in state B merely if committed by a citizen from state A.
I thought Reid was getting fired, supposedly in the Spring of this year. I guess that was a rumor. She is a hateful person.
It is such a JOY to see both Joys going crazy, but as LIBERALS they are crazy over anything...
Joy Reid should blame Harry Reid for making this possible when he eliminated the filibuster rule for Supreme Court appointees. Without Reid and Trump Roe couldn’t have been overturned.
The only time I’ve seen a mother charged is when they’ve continued to use drugs or drink heavily during the pregnancy
Slander. The Holy Spirit didn’t tell her to say it.
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