Speaker 1: They are continuing, by the way, on the Republican side to be complete lunatics
when it comes to abortion. The latest is that the attorney general of Alabama says women can
be prosecuted for taking abortion pills. A report from AL.com one week after the federal government
made it easier to get abortion pills, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Tuesday
Women in Alabama who use those pills to end pregnancies could be prosecuted. That's despite
wording rights. AL.com and Alabama's new Human Life Protection Act that criminalizes abortion
providers and prevents its use against the people receiving abortions. Instead, the
attorney general's office said Alabama could rely on an older lab, an older law designed to protect
children from meth lab fumes. Quote, The Human Life Protection Act targets abortion providers,
exempting women upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted to be performed. It does not provide
an across the board exemption from all criminal laws, including the chemical endangerment law.
That's what they would use to prosecute a woman who ingests an abortion pill to end a pregnancy.
The chemical endangerment law. This is a terrible idea. And remember that Donald Trump thought of
this before Donald Trump understood. You're not supposed to say we go after the women.
Donald Trump had this incredible moment when being interviewed by Chris MATTHEWS back in
this was 2015 or 2016 where he said, yes, you should punish the women. Remember this.
Speaker 2: Do you believe in punishment for abortion? Yes or no as a principle?
The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment for the woman. Yeah,
it has to be some form of tension. I don't know. Speaker 1: Now, the next day, Donald Trump
backed back. That he walked that back. He was told immediately. Donald, you off script? We say punish
the doctors. We don't punish the women. But this is something that Republicans have toyed around
with for a long time now. When you criminalize abortion, you restrict access to safe and legal
abortion. You don't actually limit abortion and you directly attack the autonomy and sovereignty
that women should have over their own bodies. They talk about freedom, liberty, etc. except not in
this particular case. Women should have the right to make decisions about their bodies and their own
health care. The government shouldn't be able to force them to carry pregnancies to term against
their will. And the idea of criminally prosecuting a woman who makes the decision to take an abortion
pill is really Gilliard type stuff. Prosecuting women who take who take abortion pills also puts
their health and well-being at risk. Because, again, when you dissuade women from legal and
safe medical services, they pursue sometimes illegal and often unsafe services. And by the way,
if you care about this, which a lot of them don't. These types of laws always disproportionately
affect poor women and women of color. Because, I mean, listen, you look at in Argentina,
for example, where abortion was illegal for a long time, you think wealthy women weren't having safe
abortions. They were. But of course, they needed to have the money for it. And this is often the
way that that that goes. There seems to be one Republican who gets that this type of thing is
a bad idea. And that's Nancy Mace. Nancy Mace, Republican congresswoman, appeared on Morning
Joe. When was this? Oh, this morning, I believe it was. And she said, it's not really a great thing
for Republicans to be pushing this type of stuff. Speaker 3: How does this week the I think it was
the governor of Alabama said that women should be thrown in prison if they take an abortion
pill. So, I mean, Plan B is something that 90% of America supports. Women shouldn't be thrown in
prison. Neither should doctors at this juncture either. But one of the things that I've been
harping on this weekend for months now is that if we're going to get serious about saving lives,
if we were serious about that issue, we have to have legislation that will pass a Democrat
controlled Senate and a Republican controlled House. One of the things that we could do right
now is giving women access to birth control if you want to get serious about saving.
Speaker 1: Now, she is saying all the right things, but the truth is she voted for a lot
of this stuff anyway. So she is apparently recognizing, at least for PR purposes,
that Republicans should look in a different direction. But when you look at her voting record,
it really leaves something to be desired at the end of the day. This is not something the
American people are increasingly going for. And Republicans need to figure out where do
we draw the line in order to avoid damaging ourselves, as they argue, is arguably did to
some degree in the midterms. But that's the new one. Alabama saying we could prosecute women who
take abortion pills. We're going to take a very quick break. Make sure you subscribe to
the. A YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash The David Pakman Show. Plenty more coming up today.