Babe, wake up: New Republican comment on abortion so stupid it’s actually funny just dropped. Bernie Moreno, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio, suggested at a rally this week that instead of abortion rights, women just need someone big and strong to help carry their strollers for them. I don’t know… can’t a gal have both? At a campaign event, Moreno recounted his daughter flying home to visit him. “Mom carrying what looks like an F1 team-worth of equipment—people helped her on that plane. Helped put the stroller away, helped her with her seat,” he said, per the New Republic. “Those are the kinds of things that we can do. Let’s be a pro-mom, pro-family policy.” https://twitter.com/DistillSocial/status/1760117556151472475 I’m glad for Moreno’s daughter, truly, but I also have to laugh. Forced pregnancy, birth, and parenthood are all apparently swell so long as there’s a kind, burly stranger around to pick up a fragile little lady’s stroller for her. In any case, I repeat: Can’t a gal have both? The majority of people who have abortions already have at least one kid. The need for both abortion rights and help with lugging around a heavy stroller—as well as all of the other rights and resources requisite to parent with dignity—are hardly mutually exclusive, as Moreno’s bizarre comments seem to imply. Of course, as is often pointed out, ostensibly "pro-family," anti-abortion politicians support neither abortion rights nor family leave, health care, child care, and a robust social safety net. That said, Moreno’s comments and anti-abortion politics are in pretty stark contrast with the will of Ohio voters, who voted in November to enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution and overcame significant hurdles and voter suppression tactics to do so. The race for the Democrat Sherrod Brown’s Senate seat this cycle could be pivotal to stopping a potential national abortion ban, should Republicans keep the House and Donald Trump win back the White House. The former president is reportedly eyeing a 16-week national abortion ban, while his anti-abortion allies are frothing at the mouth to enact a range of insane anti-abortion policies, including making medication abortion vastly less accessible. But alas, don’t worry, guys. Should shit truly hit the fan, all we really need is a real man to carry our strollers for us.
