Everyone is in Favor
In last week’s debacle of a debate, Donnie claimed that “everyone, men and women, Republicans and Democrats, was in favor of allowing the states to set their own abortion rules.” Since Roe v. Wade was superceded, that poor Texas woman was nearly taken to court for going out of state for an abortion rather than risking her own life while carrying a non-viable fetus to term. That poor Ohio 13 year old was nearly prosecuted for going to Indiana for an abortion rather than carrying her rapist’s fetus to term.
Maybe there are at least two women who would not be in favor of the individual states setting abortion laws willy-nilly.
How else can Republicans keep women barefoot and pregnant? The Texas Republican party’s 2022 platform calls for “rescinding unilateral no-fault divorce laws and supporting covenant marriage.” How do we define “covenant marriage”? In 1861, a New York judge refused divorce to a woman who had been beaten unconscious by her husband after she objected to the family dog sleeping on their bed. The judge ruled “The wife should not seek on slight provocation to dissolve that sacred bond that ties her to her husband for life, for better or for worse.” Wife-beating dog-lovers, head to Texas! Covenant marriage rules!
Republicans love to play the victim. Podcaster Steven Crowder argued, “No-fault divorce means that if a woman cheats on you, she leaves , and she gets half of what you are worth. It’s not no-fault. It’s always man-fault. If you’re a woman from meager means with no talent and you want to get wealthy, you marry a rich man, leave him, and take half.” Poor men! What if you’re a Slovenian semi-nude lingerie model with very peculiar ideas about how to decorate the White House for Christmas? Can you get away with half of Mar-a-Lago?
When J.D. Vance was running for the Senate from Ohio, he said, “No fault divorce was one of the great tricks pulled on America. Maybe some marriages were unhappy. Maybe some were even violent. But is making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear going to make people happier in the long run?”
Actually it does, J.D. From 1976 to 1985, states that adopted no-fault divorce saw their overall domestic violence rates drop by one third to one half including relationships that did not end in divorce. The number of women murdered by “intimate partners” declined by 10%. Female suicide rates also declined.
Republicans got the “pregnant” part of “barefoot and pregnant” in the states that they control. Is “barefoot” (stuck in an abusive marriage) next? Surely, Donnie will claim that “everyone is in favor” of that as well.
By Ed Dufton
