No one should ever have to justify why they want or need an abortion. But there are circumstances, such as rape and incest, that make it even more unreasonable to deny pregnant people the fundamental right to choose.
And now that the Supreme Court has elected to overturn Roe v. Wade, reversing nearly 50 years of federal abortion rights, some Republicans are desperately trying to justify a decision they boldly and unashamedly support.
In a now-deleted tweet, Rep. Greg Murphy, a Republican representing North Carolina’s 3rd congressional district, boldly states that “no one is forcing anyone to have sex.”
The tweet, published Sunday, lasted for two hours before Murphy finally deleted it, according to ProPublica’s “Politwoops” database, which tracks deleted tweets from officials and candidates for public office.
It goes without saying that people force other people to have sex and sometimes even lead to an unwanted pregnancy. According to research from the CDC, nearly one in five women has experienced a completed or attempted rape in her lifetime. Many men are also victims of rape.
Murphy should know this, because in addition to being a congressman, he’s also a doctor. He is a urologist who received medical training from UNC-Chapel Hill, served as chief of staff at Vidant Medical Center and has held several prominent board positions, according to the biography on his website.
Perhaps in a perfect world, sexual assault survivors would never have to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy because they would never have been raped in the first place. But that’s not the world we live in. Murphy’s erasing of this reality is shameful and totally inappropriate for a government official, let alone one who claims to use his medical expertise to advocate for his constituents. Besides, it shouldn’t matter whether someone was forced into sex or not. What a person chooses to do with their body should be just that – a choice – and they shouldn’t like it unless they want to.
But no matter how Republicans try to justify the ruling, the reality is that most North Carolinas and most Americans don’t believe it. The latest poll shows that 59% of Americans disapprove of the Supreme Court decision. A large majority of voters say it makes them more likely to vote in November, with 51% saying they would definitely vote for a candidate who would support a federal law to restore abortion rights.
Republicans know that. They are faced with the political reality that this is not a problem that helps them, and they react badly. And in doing so, they show us exactly who they are.
