Republican presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio is campaigning in Iowa, and said during an interview there that "women are being 'pushed into abortions' by organizations like Planned Parenthood that then profit from selling fetal tissue."
“Now what you've done is you've created an industry—now what you've done is you've created an incentive for people to be pushed into abortions so that those [fetal] tissues can be harvested and sold for a profit,” the Florida senator said Monday in an interview with KCCI.Literally every part of this is aggressively dishonest. Rubio is straight-up lying, and he knows he's lying.
...Rubio said it's "unclear" whether the group is profiting off fetal tissue, but called for investigations. He and other Republicans are pushing to cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
Asked if his claim about women being pressured into abortions was a stretch, Rubio held firm. "Absolutely," he said. "If you go to one of these centers young women are provided very few options. In many places they're not told anything about, for example, adoption services that might be available to them. In essence, you come in and it's already predetermined. This is the direction—this is what this place does. It provides abortions, and we are going to channel you in that direction."
It's not "unclear" whether Planned Parenthood is profiting from the sale of fetal tissue. Nearly a dozen states called for investigations into Planned Parenthood after the heavily edited "undercover" videos were released, and not a single one of them has turned up any evidence of wrongdoing. It's abundantly clear that Planned Parenthood is doing nothing wrong and has been complying with the law.
Further, Planned Parenthood does not try to talk abortion-seeking people into abortions, and are in fact required by many states to read patients "informational brochures" or enforce waiting periods or follow other requirements explicitly designed by anti-choice legislatures to discourage abortion.
When a pregnant person shows up to get an abortion, it's because they want an abortion.
But Rubio, like most of his contemptible compatriots, believe abortion-seeking people, especially women, are stupid, impulsive, ignorant infants who need to be saved from ourselves.
Does anyone honestly believe there has ever been a woman who showed up for an abortion appointment unaware of the existence of adoption?
How ninny-brained does Rubio believe women are that we don't and can't make informed choices for ourselves, that we don't and can't research our options for ourselves, that we are so hopeless at life that we must be saved by male Republican legislators?
This is an utterly enraging suggestion. Rubio talks about abortion-seeking women as though we are brainless, gormless, hapless know-nothings. And then calls that respect for life.
Senator Rubio, you have zero respect for my life if you imagine that it is being lived by someone who is fundamentally incapable of making decisions for herself.
And let me just observe that I don't believe it's an abortion provider's responsibility to talk to their patients about adoption any more than it is my primary care physician's responsibility to talk to me about herbal remedies when I show up with a sinus infection in need of antibiotics. Adoption, and herbal remedies, are legitimate choices, but if an adult human being has determined that those choices are not right for them, then it isn't a doctor's responsibility to audit those choices and discourage them from seeking the healthcare services they need.
Of course, Rubio doesn't agree with me, because he doesn't believe abortion is healthcare. But I have news for him:
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