In June, the United States Supreme Court overturned fifty years of precedent and took the right to an abortion away from 150 million people. Senator Josh Kimbrell and Representative Josiah Magnuson could hardly contain their excitement. Josiah has gone to great lengths to explain why he doesn’t think an abortion ban should have any exceptions. Josh wants to go even further; he is pushing for a constitutional amendment that would ban abortion nationwide.
These people, and others like them in our legislature, do not care about us. They don’t care about our wives, mothers, sisters or daughters any more than they care about our husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, or family who don’t quite conform to any of those labels.
No. What Josh and Josiah care about is catering to that 15-20% extreme minority who favor a complete and total abortion ban. They do not care about the consequences for us or for anyone else. Out of touch legislators like them have lately demonstrated a pattern of radical extremism that is unacceptable and unamerican.
Over the past year, these legislators and their cronies in Columbia have been on a warpath against women and minorities. From medical discrimination laws that target the health and wellness of trans people, to educational censorship bills, to bullying libraries and schools by threatening to deny them funding if they don’t participate in book bans, and now banning all abortions across the state, they have gone too far. YOU have gone too far.
Because of you, documented, legal immigrants will be unable to establish themselves or their careers in our state. Because of you, teachers will be fired for acknowledging the existence of gay people. Because of you, we’re not going to have anti-hate crime legislation in South Carolina this year. Because of you, LGBTQ human beings, many of them children, will take their own lives. Because of right wing extremists like you, someone somewhere will be charged with first degree murder for taking birth control pills. Because of you, countless human beings will die when they pursue abortion through unsafe means because you left them with no choice. Because of you, people with ectopic pregnancies will die. People with septic uteruses will die. People who have miscarriages will be arrested and prosecuted. People with unreleased miscarriages will die. Because of you, our overwhelmed foster care system will be flooded with babies whose mothers could not care for them but were forced to birth them anyway.
And do you know who WILL be able to safely get abortions after this ban passes? YOUR wives. YOUR daughters. YOUR mistresses. Because we all know that women of means will have no trouble getting around it. This ban would mostly affect working class people. And no matter how much lip service you pay to them, you don’t care about them.
Thirty seven percent of all abortions are performed on evangelical women. Sixty percent are performed on folks who already have children. The women who seek abortions are more than just statistics. They are the women you go to church with. The women you work with. Your own family members who are too petrified to tell you the truth.
You have done NOTHING to address the real problems facing every day South Carolinians. Instead, you stay focused on dreaming up new ways to make life harder for women, for LGBTQ folks, and for other minorities.
The purpose of these comments is not to change your mind. We have already tried. Brave activists have shown up at the Capitol time and again, begging and pleading you not to enact your hateful policies. You did not listen.
And there is no reason to think you’ll listen now. So no, I’m not here because I think you’ll change your minds. I’m here to tell you that you have gone too far. You are supposed to represent everyone in your districts, not just the people who voted for you, and you have failed. You have indulged too many conspiracies. You have oppressed too many women and too many minorities. You have taken away too many civil rights. We have had enough. And you will reap the consequences of what you have sown.
We will not let hate win.