Anti abortion Republicans are apparently not satisfied with just merely controlling
women's bodies and making decisions about whether they should have Children, which
of course affects them and their economic situation for the rest of their lives.
They also want to make it more difficult for them to get child support
from the individual who got them pregnant in the first place.
So, let's hear from west Virginia, State senator chris Pritt, let's say you've
got a father who doesn't want to really be involved in the life at all, really.
>> He knows that if if she carries through the pregnancy,
he's gonna have possibly some sort of child support obligation.
And so what he wants to do is he wants to, in a in a sense,
encourage her to go and find a way to get an abortion.
>> So this state delegate, who, by the way, I should note, is a divorce attorney.
So I'm sure he's got a soft spot in his heart for
the men that he represents in these divorce cases.
He's trying to make the case that maybe we shouldn't make it easy for
these women to get child support from the guy who,
you know, did his part in getting her pregnant.
Because there could be a big consequence to that it could actually encourage
abortions.
And here he is, twisting himself up in knots to explain that point that
if if it's a certain individual, if he has any kind of familiarity with her.
>> He knows that she might be of such a state of mind.
She may be in such a vulnerable position that she decides it's not worth
everything.
He's going to put me through to carry this this pregnancy forward.
It's gonna be easier, it's gonna be better for me to go and just terminate this life.
And so what she does is she goes over to Virginia, she goes over to some other
state where abortion is legal and she goes and gets the abortion.
And so I think that's a really clear possibility if if we enact
the Second Amendment here, I don't want to be doing anything
whatsoever that is encouraging folks to go and get an abortion.
>> I don't know why he mentioned the Second Amendment in this context.
It literally makes zero sense.
But to be clear, Jessica, he's arguing that maybe
child support doesn't make sense because it'll
lead to men encouraging women to get an abortion.
>> I can't think of nothing that would make a woman want to get an abortion more
than knowing there's no financial support coming from the man who got her pregnant.
That is so straightforward.
Now, she has the entire financial burden of raising that baby.
If anything, getting rid of child support would increase the amount of abortions
that are happening.
Just this backward logic is absolutely insane.
And it's because 80% of the people who made this decision in
the Supreme Court in Dobbs B.
Jackson to overturn roe v wade, 80% men.
And then I became interested, okay,
what is the West Virginia state Legislature actually look like 87% men.
So there are these decisions being made by men that terribly affect women's bodies.
And now, not only this, but they're going to take away child support.
Their propose taking away child support.
And okay, fine, if you're having a conversation, we're going to take
away child support, but we're going to increase child tax credits, right?
We're going to give you that aid in some other way.
No, that's not what they're proposing here.
And they're saying the reason we're doing this, moreover, is less abortions.
That's our goal here absurd.
>> No, it is absolutely absurd.
West Virginia is one of the states that's outlawing abortion.
With very few exceptions.
And it's almost as if, I mean, I could be wrong here.
It's almost as if wanting to outlaw abortions isn't about protecting life.
It almost seems like it's about controlling a woman's body.
But more importantly, punishing her for engaging in sexual
activity that these funny studies think is wrong because at the end of the day,
if you're legitimately pro life, wouldn't you want to
ensure that the mother has the means necessary to feed clothe house,
take care of that child, You know, so that child lives?
No, but they don't care about that because this isn't about life or death.
You guys have to understand that I have to drill that in everyone's head.
It's important to understand that,
okay, I know that the right wing doesn't care right.
They don't care about being called hypocrites.
They don't care about us accurately identifying what the real
motivations are here.
My hope is that for anyone who takes what the right wing says at face
value on the these social issues, understand that they're liars,
that they don't care about human life.
We just had Republican senators block legislation that would expand
health care to veterans who are now suffering severe consequences,
thanks to exposure to toxic burns when they were on duty.
Okay, when they when they did their multiple doors in the Middle East and
they were exposed to toxic waste being burnt.
Okay, they inhaled that.
Now they have respiratory issues, they have cancer.
All we needed was for Congress to approve an expansion of health care.
So, these veterans can get the healthcare they need, so
they can get the treatment they need.
But no, they couldn't do it.
So are are we really gonna sit here and take these republicans words at face
value and genuinely believe that they care about lives.
They have shown us through their actions through their votes, through what they
prioritize legislatively, that they don't care about us.
They don't care about human lives, end of story.
What they do care about is culture war narratives to campaign on,
because they certainly are not going to run on economic populism.
They would never do that, that's never what they represented, and they never will
represent that, but it's also about punishing women and controlling women.
That is all this is about.
And to make an argument that no, no, no.
We can't have child support because and then give some Bs reason,
come on, not buying it for a second.
Now, he did get a little bit of backlash.
Okay, chris pret is his name.
He says a portion of a floor speech I gave was posted on twitter.
The speech was in response to an amendment allowing men to file pre birth paternity
actions.
Never in the speech that I claim men should not have to pay child support.
Maybe you didn't say that.
You didn't use those words.
Exactly.
That is what you were implying with the statement you made on the record that
forcing them to pay child support might encourage them to pressure women
to get abortions, and maybe we should reconsider this.
What do you think that implies?
He thinks we're stupid and I'm so sick of these politicians thinking that they
can do this and just get away with it, Jessica final thoughts on this.
>> Yeah.
He acknowledges a key fact which that resources are a huge reason.
So many women have an abortion,
which is not something republicans like to dress a lot.
They like to shirk that question whenever it's brought up.
And the fact that he addresses it head on is pretty telling because state
legislators have the absolute power to appropriate public funds and
we all have a right for those public funds to go towards public goods.
That's how state budgets work.
It all comes from the taxpayers within that state.
Those tax dollars should be going towards things like better health care,
better public transportation, paying his salary.
State legislators don't get much, but his salary is still paid by his constituents.
And I don't know, he could regulate business, increase wages.
Do a number of things that would definitely reduce the number of abortions
that happen in the state because so
many abortions happened because of financial necessity.
So it's absolutely in his power and he acknowledges that it's a problem.
But he's a complete hypocrite, of course, and I like that you bring up economic
populism because of course, they're not going to talk about that.
>> No, they can't run on that.
Their corporate donors not interested in it, but more importantly,
they're personally not interested in it.
They believe in rugged individualism for all ordinary Americans, but
they love corporate welfare.
Any type of corporate subsidy, you could imagine they're always in favor of it.
So socialism for corporations, rugged individualism for the rest of us,
including women who are forced to carry to term a pregnancy that they might not want