You can tell the exact moment Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) was incredulous that the head of a right-wing anti-abortion group said the crazy thing she had just said in testimony before his House committee.
During Thursday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on the impact of the Supreme Court striking down a constitutional right to abortion, Swalwell questioned Catherine Glenn Foster of the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life.
The congressman alluded to a now infamous case of a pregnant 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio who traveled to Indiana in order to obtain an abortion. Ohio has banned abortion when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is around six weeks of pregnancy. Although the state attorney general has claimed she could have obtained the abortion in Ohio, the law itself doesn’t corroborate this.
“Do you think a 10-year-old should choose to carry a baby?” Swalwell asked.
“I believe it would probably impact her life and so therefore, it would fall under any exception and would not be an abortion,” Foster replied.
“Wait,” said Swalwell, who then paused as if to gather his thoughts on the answer. “It would not be an abortion if a 10-year-old – with her parents – made the decision not to have a baby that was the result of rape?”
She answered, “If a 10-year-old became pregnant as a result of rape and it was threatening her life, then that’s not an abortion. So, it would not fall under any abortion restriction in our nation.”
Swalwell turned to another witness, Sarah Warbelow of the pro-choice Human Rights Campaign.
“Ms. Warbelow, are you familiar with disinformation?” he asked.
“Yes, I am,” she responded.
“Did you just hear some disinformation?” he queried.
“Yes, I heard some very significant disinformation,” she stated.
America’s right-wing echo chamber of politicians, social media commentators and kooky extremist groups are well aware that overturning Roe is just as unpopular as everyone knew it would be once the Right had to turn to a non-democratically constituted Supreme Court majority to do what Americans as a whole did not want to happen.
So now they are doing this weird PR two-step where they say, among other things, that outright bans on any abortions are not really outright bans, and that little 10-year-olds who are raped and get abortions aren’t really abortions in the eyes of anti-abortion laws.
We are not shocked they will continue to lie through their teeth to get what they want.
See video of Swalwell exchange below.