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This one got a little bit heated — mostly on my part, I admit — but I really just can’t deal with people saying the Supreme Court leaked draft decision doesn’t “ban” abortion, and that women can just go to another state for an abortion.
But that is what Dustin from Wyoming called into my SiriusXM program to say — starting off by saying “you’re really making me mad.” He also didn’t understand my assertion that states could ban contraception if the Supreme Court ruled that way, and stop contraception at states’ borders (He seemed to think I was talking about the U.S.-Mexico border, because I guess they’re all just obsessed with that border).
Why should anyone have to go to another state to exercise their rights? That’s the logical question, and I course I posed it. (And of course, some states, like Missouri, are now moving to ban women who reside in the state from getting abortions in other states.) But Dustin still felt states should decided.
Okay, then how would he feel if his sister were raped and forced to have the baby. Would he be okay with it, since most of the laws in states banning abortion have no exception for rape or incest, or, in some, even many medical emergencies? Suddenly, he thought there should be exemptions and, suddenly, he thought maybe the states shouldn’t decide.
I also asked how he’d like it if the Supreme Court allows bans on contraception — as this decision’s reasoning sets up, and some Republicans in states like Michigan have called for that to happen — which wold force Dustin would to drive out of state to get condoms.
Dustin was pretty stumped. He threw out insults, hemmed and hawed, deflected, laughed, asserted his rights as the “father” of a fetus that a woman might abort, claimed my hypotheticals — of which I put out a few others — were not realistic.
But he couldn’t answer the question.
Listen in, and let me know your thoughts!
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