Texas's ban on abortions does not
make an exception for
victims of rape or incest.
And this was something that
Governor Greg Abbott was asked
about by a reporter recently.
And his answer is full of lies,
intentional lies, and
also magical thinking.
So let's hear what he had to say.
>> Regarding the heartbeat bill,
why force a rape or incest victim
to carry a pregnancy to close?
>> It doesn't require that at all
because, obviously, it provides at
least six weeks for a person to be
able to get an abortion.
And so, for one,
it doesn't provide that.
That said, however,
let's make something very clear.
Rape is a crime.
And Texas will work tirelessly to
make sure that we eliminate all
rapists from the streets of Texas
by aggressively going out and
arresting them and prosecuting them
and getting them off the streets.
>> So, let's address this in two
parts.
First part being the six weeks that
women have to make a decision about
whether or not to get an abortion,
because the abortion ban is past
six weeks.
Women don't know they're pregnant
for at least the first four weeks,
that's the way it works.
Because the first sign that a woman
is pregnant is a missed
period, okay?
In fact, most pregnancy tests won't
even tell you that you're pregnant
if you take the test too soon.
So when you say that it's six
weeks, I mean, either he's
incredibly dumb and doesn't really
know how female anatomy works,
which is very possible with
Right-wingers, there's no question,
or he's intentionally lying.
And so, if, let's say, a woman has
a missed period and she's regular,
right, she on the dot every 28 days
she gets her period.
That means she's got two weeks to
make a decision.
And Texas already had
restrictive abortion laws.
You have to visit the abortion
clinic twice, right?
You can't just go and say,
all right,
I want to get an abortion,
I've made my mind up.
You go and they try to convince you
against it.
And then, you have to leave given,
I believe, 24 hours, and then you
go back again the second time.
>> Assuming you can get that first
appointment- >> Exactly.
>> And then can get, immediately,
that second appointment.
>> And right now,
all of these abortion providers in
the state of Texas have canceled
appointments because they're
terrified of the litigation that'll
be brought on them as a result of
these Right-wingers accusing them
of conducting illegal abortions.
So, okay, so already it's
just effectively banned,
abortions are effectively banned.
And then, you have the issue of
women who don't have regular
periods, who might miss periods,
who might be late when it comes to
her period every month, whatever,
right?
Sometimes whether you're stressed
or you had some sort of change in
your life,
that could lead to a late period.
It bans abortions,
that's what the point is,
it bans abortions.
You don't know you're pregnant
the moment you conceive, you just
don't, that's not the way it works.
>> I would like to apologize to
the audience, because you've used
words like period, and conceiving,
and regularity,
whatever any of that is.
And I don't think we need any of
your woman mumbo jumbo.
>> Right.
>> None of all of that was involved
in the crafting this bill,
it doesn't need to be involved in
the discussion of the bill, either.
We don't know about that,
we don't want to know about that,
that doesn't matter.
God, but the interesting thing that
I had missed when watching that
video, that Jayar actually pointed
out to me, was he very emphatically
said at least six weeks >> No,
it's just six weeks, >> Six weeks,
but it's not even six weeks.
>> But that's not even what that
means. >> Right.
>> Yeah, so the whole thing, and
again, and
I feel like I say this every five
minutes on the Damage Report,
I don't know, do you ever get tired
of fact checking someone or
correcting an ignorance or a
misunderstanding that they totally
already know slash don't care?
>> Joe Rogan? >> Well, that,
too, but I'm saying the six
weeks isn't long enough.
He probably knows that, and
whether he knows it or not,
he doesn't care.
>> Yeah, of course, he
doesn't care.
>> So, you and
women have to point that out,
it's so frustrating.
>> Yeah. >> To be trying to educate
people that aren't interested
in education.
>> No. >> They don't care about
that, that's just not a part of it.
>> Wait, this has nothing to do
with protecting life.
This is all about control.
Look, for Greg Abbott,
specifically, he's worried about
his primary challenger, Allen West,
who's even more of a lunatic
than he is.
And unfortunately, Republican
voters have become incredibly
zealous or they've become zealots
in regard to controlling people's
personal lives and private lives.
And so,
there's really no end to how far
Right-wing candidates can get.
And so, Abbott's like, I'm going to
be challenged from the Right.
Well, then,
I need to pass a looser gun laws,
essentially allowing anyone,
regardless of permits,
no permits, whatever,
to be able to obtain guns,
to carry guns.
And then, this abortion law is yet
another example of what he's doing
to appeal to Right-wing voters in
the state of Texas.
That's what this is about.
This isn't about anything else for
people like Greg Abbott, who has
had awful leadership, who has done
awful leadership, especially
during the pandemic where tens of
thousands of Texans have died.
>> Yeah.
>> The deregulated privatized
energy grid in Texas killed
hundreds of people this year.
He doesn't care.
>> Yeah. >> He does not care.
He hasn't done anything to
change that.
This is not about protecting
life, okay?
So let's be clear.
Now, let's get to the rape part of
this, okay?
Because he claims we're
going to eliminate rape.
He knows that's not true.
Do you know how many
untested rape kits there are in
the state of Texas?
Over 6,000 of them.
And those are women who reported
that they had been raped.
Nevermind the women who get raped
and never report it
because they're terrified.
They might be raped in their own
homes by an uncle, by a family
member, and they don't report it.
So how are you going to eliminate
rape?
How are you going to eliminate rape
when you won't even
test your own damn rape kits?
>> Well, and why does that
have anything to do with anything?
Okay, you can't just say I get to
do whatever I want to people, but
don't worry,
I'm eliminating murder.
Okay, well, okay, do that, then,
that's fine.
That doesn't mean you get to
do anything along
the way that you want.
Yeah, rape is a crime.
We get that. We already understood
that, we'd love to eliminate it.
I personally think that your side
of the ideological aisle can do
quite a bit to reign in men who
think that they're sort
of entitled to sex and
that sort of thing's totally cool.
You could do that stuff, too.
And then, you can certainly
prosecute people after they do it.
It would be great if you could talk
about the problem of the epidemic
of rape without making it
seem as if,
as we talked about this morning,
it's something straight out of SVU
where it comes exclusively via guys
hiding and alleys, it would be
great if you could do that.
I feel like you're kind of
contributing to the problem when
you maintain that
perpetuate that myth.
But yeah, it has nothing to do with
whether a woman has six weeks,
20 weeks, 50 weeks,
that has nothing to do with it.
He changed the subject so that
the guys behind him could cheer and
pretend that
they're doing something,
that's all that that was.
He didn't announce that and
then say and
here's the $10 billion I'm putting
into new sexual assault programs.
>> Greg Abbott does not care about
rape, he does not care about rape.
That was his way, it was just
a honestly incredibly weak cop out.
>> It was disgusting [CROSSTALK]
>> Yes, and so, look, honestly,
I just wish that we had Democratic
lawmakers who were willing to play
hardball.
Because if this case,
if this is allowed to stand, if it
works its way through the courts,
and the federal courts uphold this
ban on abortions in Texas,
essentially make the argument that,
well, the law's written in such a
way that the state isn't violating
the constitutional rights of women.
It's private
citizens enforcing the law, and
that's not unconstitutional.
If that's the argument they're
making, awesome, awesome.
Let's open the damn floodgates.
So California,
let's call their bluff.
Look, corporate democrats in
California are so
awful that they would never dare do
something like this.
But imagine if we had strong
Democrats who decided, all right,
we're going to ban guns.
We're going to pass a law
in the state of California that
bans all guns.
There's no, we're
not going to make any exceptions,
all guns are banned.
Handguns, assault weapons,
doesn't matter,
all of them, banned.
But the state isn't going to
enforce the law, we're going to ask
private citizens across the country
to enforce the law for us.
Create this vigilante system.
And since we're not enforcing it,
we're not violating anyone's
constitutional rights.
Let's see how Conservatives
like that.
Let's call their bluff,
let's do it.
>> And let and
if you have a problem with that,
let me tell you,
assault is a crime, and
we will get rid of all assault.
>> No, no-
>> [CROSSTALK] do with anything.
>> If you're worried about being
a victim of crime and you want a
firearm to protect yourself, we're
just going to eliminate all crime.
It's what we're going to do
>> I'm sure you feel reassured.
Yeah, no, it's nonsense.
I mean, it leaves us in much
the same situation we were in,
in advance of the Supreme Court
ruling.
We have to hope that
Amy Coney Barrett and Kavanaugh and
a bunch of other Christian zealots
will go against everything they
believe in and protect rights that
women have had for half a century?
>> No, don't worry,
Brett Kavanaugh told us during
the Senate confirmation hearings
that he respects precedent.
>> That's what Susan Collins
told me, too.
And Merrick Garland said they were
going to fight to protect
women's rights.
They didn't say how.
>> Yeah, no, no, no,
they did say how.
They will make sure that there is
no property damage at
these abortion clinics.
>> Okay, that's good.
>> Awesome. >> So- >> That's not
the issue, though, right?
>> Yeah, when, for how long,
they're all going to shut down.
[LAUGH] That's good,
I guess while you can have it.
Yeah, no, it's just it's so
pathetic.
Again, we don't have anyone.
No one in a position of leadership
and authority on our side is
actually fighting against the
insanity that we see on the Right.
>> And the fact that protecting
reproductive rights hasn't been
codified through legislation yet
just gives you a sense of how
broken our entire system is.
Even when Democrats had
a super majority in Congress with
a Democratic president under Obama,
that was the first two years of his
presidency, could have done
amazing things, but they didn't.
And here we are today.
>> They could now.
They won't.
>> No, they won't.
They'd have to do away with
the filibuster.
But gosh darn it, Joe Manchin,
really, he loves bipartisanship.
Yeah, sure he does.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.