Quote of the Day: “The most brutal form of domestic violence is the violence against unborn children”

State Rep. Joe Fischer

Photo credit: Legisative Research Commission

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Via Raw Story:

A Kentucky Republican lawmaker wants to classify abortion as a form of domestic violence.

“The most brutal form of domestic violence is the violence against unborn children, and this particular bill would prohibit abortions after the fetus feels pain, which is 20 weeks and older,” said Rep. Joe Fischer (R-Fort Thomas).

Apparently, the fact that these laws have been repeatedly declared unconstitutional isn’t stopping anti-choicers from continuing to push 20-week abortion bans. Fischer’s particularly galling innovation is to tack the ban onto a bill addressing actual domestic violence. The original legislation, which has strong Democratic support, would allow victims to get protection orders against former spouses, not just those who are married or cohabitating. 

I get that politicians try to push through their pet bills by attaching them to unrelated bills all the time, but Fischer should be ashamed for diminishing the seriousness of domestic violence with this bullshit nod to the anti-choice base. Worldwide, 40 percent of women who are murdered–these are actual human beings, mind you, with bodies and histories and friends and families and dreams–are killed by an intimate partner. That’s not brutal enough for Fischer?

Thankfully, the House Speaker plans to rule that the amendment is not germane to the original bill, and the legislature can carry on the important work of combatting the all-too-common problem of violence between two fully-formed human beings.

Maya DusenberyMaya Dusenbery is an Executive Director of Feministing.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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