On Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was called out for propagating a bald-faced lie about the newly-passed Alabama abortion ban. And instead of correcting her lie, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez made a pathetic excuse to cover up her deceit. It was, in a word, embarrassing.
“Alabama lawmakers are making all abortions a felony punishable w [jail time], [including] women victimized by rape+incest,” claimed AOC. “Of course, no added punishments for rapists. It’s going to [Governor Kay Ivey’s] desk. She will decide the future of women’s rights in Alabama.”
Of course, this is untrue. Third-party abortionists would be prosecuted under the new law, not mothers. One America News Network’s Liz Wheeler called out the 29-year-old: “This is a lie,” she replied. “Under no circumstances would women be jailed for abortions. The abortionist would be penalized.”
“Tell the truth, [AOC],” Wheeler continued. “You’re trying to scare women into supporting abortion. Why don’t you tell the truth & see if women support your extreme abortion agenda then?”
What Wheeler tried to explain to Ocasio-Cortez somehow still did not register with the socialist, who replied: “It’s a felony punishable by jail, [including] cases of women pregnant by rape or incest. Twitter is 280 [characters] – read the context clues in grammar of the tweet.”
“But good to know you’re here to promote criminalizing medical providers aiding victims of rape and incest! good job,” she added.
Wheeler pushed back: “280 characters is plenty of room to tell truth. It’d never be a felony for women. Period.”
“It’s despicable to use victims of child rape as justification for 1M abortions every year… because you Dems aren’t seeking exemption for rape/incest, you want all abortion legal always,” the conservative host noted.
Here’s where Ocasio-Cortez gets downright pathetic in her cover-up. The elected Democrat claims Wheeler is playing a “semantics” game (she is not) and says women providers of illegal abortion would be charged, somehow making her initial lie about mothers being prosecuted not a lie (it’s still a lie).
“Actually it *would* be a felony for women – if those women are medical providers. See? According to your own semantic standard, you ‘lied,’” wrote Ocasio-Cortez. “We can fact-check obvious semantics all day and make absurd bad faith claims if that’s how you want be. But I have better uses for my time.”
As noted by The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles on Wednesday, Alabama’s Human Life Protection Act — a mere three-and-a-half pages long — was too long for Ocasio-Cortez to bother reading. Under Section 5, the legislation expressly states:
“No woman upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted to be performed shall be criminally or civilly liable. Furthermore, no physician confirming the serious health risk to the child’s mother shall be criminally or civilly liable for those actions.”
This absurd misinformation was likewise spread wildly about Georgia’s new pro-life law, known as the “heartbeat bill.” As highlighted on Wednesday by The Daily Wire, the law does not criminalize mothers, either:
The law applies to third parties committing the abortion. For example, an abortionist providing an illegal abortion, or a man beating a woman and killing her baby, would be in deep legal trouble for murder; not the woman so-called “self-terminating.”
National Review’s David French explained: “The heartbeat bill did not repeal a number of Georgia criminal statutes that explicitly apply to abortions and unborn children, and it does not overrule controlling legal authority holding that these statutes bar prosecution of a woman for terminating her own pregnancy.”