I know that a ten year old might not understand pregnancy, but
I also know that a ten year old understands life and playing with dolls.
I know when my daughter was ten years old, she cried and
begged for a little sister or a baby.
>> You just heard from a woman who thinks it's a great idea to force,
literally force, a ten year old girl who has been impregnated by a rapist
to bring that pregnancy to term.
And go through the traumatic experience of labor and childbirth.
Who is that woman, you might ask?
Her name is Laura Streetman, and
she's the executive director of the Cincinnati Right to Life organization.
During this hearing by the Ohio House's Constitutional Resolutions Committee
on Tuesday.
She again argued that the ten year old, who was in headlines months ago after she
was impregnated by a rapist, should have been forced to have that rapist baby.
Let's watch more of what she had to say.
>> While a pregnancy might have been difficult on a ten year old body,
a woman's body is designed to carry life.
That is a biological fact.
It is not designed to have disgusting death instruments remove
her preborn child from her womb.
Both situations would be difficult,
but we know for a fact that every single time, life wins.
And that, again, is a statistical fact.
It's a terrible, tragic situation.
And I'm sorry the abortionist did not report the rape, and
I'm sorry that the mother permitted this.
>> So not only is she demanding that a horrible thing happen
to a ten year old girl, she also lies about how the rape was not reported.
The rape absolutely was reported.
In fact, just to give you guys a little more context,
in case you missed that story.
It had to do with the ten year old girl who, again, was impregnated by a rapist,
but because of abortion restrictions in the state of Ohio,
her family had to take her to Indiana in order to get the abortion.
And that story made headlines for obvious reasons.
These antiabortion laws that are passing in red states are incredibly cruel.
And there seems to be a consensus on that,
even when it comes to Republican lawmakers.
They try to deflect from the story.
They try to run away from the story, but not this woman.
Laura Streetman thinks it's totally fine to openly, transparently,
candidly urge local governments to force ten year old girls to give childbirth,
to give birth to a baby.
Which, by the way, she's wrong about other things,
including the safety of someone that young delivering a baby.
I'll give you more details on that in just a moment.
>> Yeah, so I have a ten year old daughter and
this woman is a lunatic.
But she's not alone.
They're not a lot of them.
They're a tiny, very loud mouth minority of religious zealots and fundamentalists,
and they don't believe in democracy.
So this is important context in Ohio.
They're trying to move ballot measures for them to pass from 50%,
which is normal democracy, to 60%, why?
Because they know that they're a tiny minority,
that the overwhelming majority of the people of Ohio and
the country do not want to force ten year olds to have their rapist babies.
That's a lunatic position.
But the right-wingers want it.
They want it.
And the Republicans always cater to their base, so they're like,
okay, let's have a legitimate debate.
A ten year old, a ten year old.
You guys, a lot of you have had ten year old kids.
First of all, it's gonna kill the kid.
Are you insane?
Second of all, you're gonna force a ten year old to have their rapist baby?
Are you doubly insane?
And the answer is definitively yes.
>> Yes, and just notice the zealotry when it comes to this particular issue.
And the argument that they will give is our zealotry is justified because we care
about human lives, right?
They pretend like they see the zygote as a human life,
that they see this rapist fetus as a human life.
And should force the ten year old to bring that pregnancy to term and
go through the process of childbirth, okay.
Notice that there's no zealotry on the right when it comes to
the endless school shootings.
That actually slaughter children who are living, breathing and
viable outside the womb.
No zealotry when it comes to doing something about that, really weird,
right Cenk?
>> No guys, for the religious zealots, it never listened.
Their words are irrelevant.
They say, I'm pro life.
Is okay, let's get the AR-15s out of society so
that we don't have these kids butchered in our schools.
You care about protecting kids lives, right?
No, I don't actually care about that at all, at all, at all.
Because of my AR-15 and
my right to murder you is way more important than my pro-life position.
They're all liars.
All they wanna do is control people and
make sure that we follow their weirdo interpretation of religion.
The answer is hell no.
Look, like I said, I got a ten year old.
If you this lunatic, I don't care if it's any legislator.
I don't care what laws they pass.
You are not going to get in my way when I'm gonna go protect my daughter.
And if you say, no, we will punish you.
If you dare protect your daughter, we're gonna have massive issues, massive.
You think you're the only ones who can get riled up?
We can get riled up.
So no, I'm not having this.
No one's having this.
For God's sake, vote the bums out.
These Republicans are lunatics, vote them out.
Otherwise they always do this.
And the minute they get into office, they're like, okay, change the laws.
Change the laws so we can't lose.
Don't make it 50%, make it 60%.
We gerrymander it so that we don't have to have the majority.
Of course you don't want the majority because you aren't the majority.
You're a big, loud mouth, right-wing, tiny minority.
It's time to shut them up already.
>> And by the way, Cenk is not wrong when he says that it is a tiny minority even
among conservative voters.
Poll after poll shows that the vast majority of Americans are supportive
of maintaining reproductive rights.
They might not personally like abortion.
They might not ever wanna take advantage of that reproductive right, but
they don't wanna take that away from other people.
They don't want the government between women and their doctors.
They don't want the government making these intimate decisions on behalf
of women.
And to those Republican voters, I commend you for speaking out.
But for the love of God, please reject policymakers who pass
these restrictive laws in these red states that only serve to
control women to make their lives much more difficult.
And even in cases where women aren't even seeking to get an abortion but
had a failed pregnancy and need medical attention as a result of that.
There have now been so many stories in the headlines about women who
weren't able to secure the health care they needed.
Because the doctors are terrified that if they go through with aborting,
that already failed pregnancy, they might be sued.
They might have to deal with litigation.
They might have to deal with some serious consequences from the state.
Is that really the type of state we wanna live in?
Country we wanna live in?
But let me give you some more details about how stupid this woman is,
because she pretends like, no, this is what females were made for, right?
Ten year old girl, that's what her body is made for.
Except she's wrong, it's incredibly dangerous to be a pregnant woman in
the United States as it is because of our broken health care system.
But it's even more dangerous when we're talking about literal ten year old girls.
So, let's go to the World Health Organization and
the National Institute of Health.
What do they have to say?
Well, they published research finding that globally,
adolescents giving birth are at higher risk of severe childbirth complications,
including severe bleeding and systemic infections.
>> Of course.
>> And the children delivered from adolescent and
teenage birth are more likely to be underweight,
which may lead to future illnesses and physical and mental disabilities.
But I mean, science, who cares about science?
This woman is a weird zealot who wants to control other people's
bodies because of what her religious doctrine tells her.
Let me give you more, though.
Think about the untold mental health damage that will be done to a ten
year old girl who is forced to give birth to her rapist baby.
Just think about that.
She also incorrectly stated that abortion is never necessary
to save a mother's life.
Except that's a lie.
The Ohio abortion ban has been blocked indefinitely since last October,
while Indiana has banned abortion with limited exceptions.
So if that ten year old were pregnant today,
she would run into even more problems because Indiana has banned abortion.
Now, Ohio is considering a constitutional amendment to protect reproductive
rights, and
anti-choice conservatives like Streetman are fighting it every step of the way.
The fall ballot proposal would assure access to abortion until what is called
viability.
I think that is the right way to go.
When the fetus could survive outside the womb, it also would protect caregivers
from being punished for performing the procedure or aiding the process.
So that is why this woman is so fired up that there is an effort currently
underway in Ohio to protect women's reproductive rights.
>> Yeah., so
I'm gonna go to a couple of members here cuz they said it really well make.
You see the Silver Dragon said,
she said that a woman's body is made to carry a baby.
When did a ten year old become a woman?
I was saying the same exact thing.
That's a little girl, not even a teenager, neither her body nor
her mind, are even close to carrying a baby.
Look, this is obvious to all sentient human beings, but when you
become a religious fundamentalist, you lose touch with all logic and reason, etc.
Look at a tiny little ten year old girl and you think, yeah,
she should be used to carry babies, even if she's raped.
They don't understand that they're monsters and
they go around lecturing us as if they're the moral ones.
We are more moral.
We are pro life, no, you're 10,000 times less moral.
You're evil incarnate.
My God, did I offend your stupid feelings?
You get to call other people evil, but when you are actually evil and
we call it out, no, you can't do that.
I'm a religious fundamentalist.
No, get away from our kids.
In fact, the throat go dragon writes in another member,
if you force your ten year old to give birth,
you should have child protective services called on you 100%, 200%.
And by the way, look at that liar.
She said, the mother permitted this about how they didn't report the rape.
What an unbelievably terrible lie about the mom.
What a disgusting human being this person is.
You don't hide behind religion to do your evil.
Just because you use a religion card doesn't mean you're moral,
especially with the right-wing in this country.
And by the way, in a lot of other countries, including Muslim countries and
other countries, the people who use the religion card are almost always
the most immoral people in the country.
>> That woman's face looks evil the way that she's,
scowling at lawmakers as she's giving this disgusting speech.
So what I mentioned earlier, the effort to protect reproductive rights in Ohio,
that is a potential fall ballot proposal.
The goal is to have that proposed amendment on ballots this November for
voters to weigh in on.
And considering what happened in some other red states when it came
to reproductive rights.
You can understand why Streetman is very concerned here,
because the majority of Americans want to protect reproductive rights.
Again, they do not want the government to get in between them and their doctors,
them and their health care needs.
Now, Streetman speech,
was part of her submitted testimony in favor of House Joint Resolution One.
Which would actually make it much harder to pass the reproductive rights amendment.
Because of pro-abortion groups advocating for
a constitutional amendment to protect the reproductive rights of women in Ohio.
The Resolutions Committee is hearing testimony on HJR 1, to increase
the percentage of votes required to pass such amendments from 50% to 60%.
So basically increase the threshold to make it even more difficult for
that to go through.
>> Because they know that people don't agree with them.
They know it for a fact.
If you thought the majority was on your side,
would you move the ballot measures to 60%?
Of course you wouldn't.
But Republicans in Ohio know for an absolute fact that they are the minority,
that the majority of citizens of Ohio,
including other Republicans, do not agree with them.
They do not agree with them.
But as usual with the Republicans these days, well, we hate democracy.
So if it gets in the way of our religious fundamentalism, well,
I would much rather have a theocratic state like Saudi Arabia or
Afghanistan than actually have a democracy.
So Republicans in Ohio, just be honest about it.
You hate our country, you hate our rights, and you just wanna oppress
us with your insane lunatic interpretation of your religion.
Speaking of which, she said, you know what?
They didn't even report the rape.
>> She lied about it.
>> I know she lied about it.
But guys, think about it, why do the right-wingers want them to report rape in
order to be able to get their abortion in these laws?
Cuz they don't believe them.
They think that they're making it up.
Do you think the ten year old was making it up?
Do you think she consented?
You would have, again, they're forcing us to call them monsters and lunatics.
A ten year old girl was gonna consent, and you're skeptical about it,
and you think that her body can carry a baby to term and
risk killing that ten year old girl.
What kind of monsters are you?
>> I was like, £85 when I was ten years old.
I'm not even exaggerating.
>> Now I know I have a ten year old.
These are the biggest monsters, the most evil people in the country.
And by the way, we're not right-wingers.
So when I say shut them up,
I don't mean like the way the right-wingers say, ban them.
>> Don't do let them speak.
>> Don't let them speak.
Don't let them speak.
Okay, cut off their mics, etc.
No, you speak, I like when you tell us how evil you are.
So when I say shut them up, I mean through your votes.
>> Yes.
>> Otherwise, these monsters are going to pass laws that are gonna affect all of us,
including your kids.