Now that the Supreme Court has taken up a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks, leftists are peddling extremism. After CNN’s Chris Cuomo said that pro-life laws are racially motivated, MSNBC’s Joy Reid said that “The Handmaid’s Tale” could be upon us.
During a segment on her show Monday night, Reid said a “Gilead-style government” could be springing up “right here in America.”
“The conservative-led Supreme Court has agreed to take up Mississippi’s restrictive abortion law, and women’s reproductive rights appear to be in serious, serious danger,” Reid said. “It’s straight out of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ with a Gilead-style government, right here in America.”
Reid went on to say that the SCOTUS case offers a “terrifying prospect,” suggesting that “far-right” religious extremists could soon own the country, just like in the Hulu series.
“It’s a terrifying prospect eerily reminiscent of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ where far-right wings religious extremists took up arms against their own country, one where women and their bodies were under the complete control of almost extravagantly corrupt and hypocritical men of god, quote, unquote,” she said, as reported by Newsbusters. “What’s so scary and frankly traumatizing about that show and the book that inspired it is that it starts off in the very place that we live in right now where women have the right to choose what they do with their bodies until they don’t. And then in what seems like a blink of an eye, those rights were just gone.”
Reid then characterized Justice Amy Coney Barrett as some kind of “Aunt Lydia” figure by employing the phrase “under his eye,” a term used in the show to suggest that women are always under the watch of “The Man.”
“Naturally, abortion opponents are thrilled given the new conservative makeup of the court, especially after the arrival of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, under his eye,” said Reid. “Without strong protections, women, including many victims of rape and incest, would have to hopscotch across the country at whatever expense, maybe too much expense for women who aren’t rich, to seek safe harbor in one of the 14 states and Washington, D.C. that do respect a woman’s right to choose.”
Also on Monday night, CNN’s Chris Cuomo said new pro-life laws are about “white fright.”
“It’s not about science or consensus,” Cuomo said. “It’s about dividing lines, legislating to the far-right white-fright vote, flooding the zone with 536 bills that abridge a woman’s right to control her own body, in 46 states. It’s just like voting rights in one way.”
Margaret Atwood, the author of the book that “The Handmaid’s Tale” is based on, said that she garnered her inspiration for the feminist dystopian novel about women being forced to produce babies for infertile wealthy elites after visiting several totalitarian – largely Communist – regimes in Eastern Europe.
“So, there I am in West Berlin surrounded by the wall, and I’m visiting various totalitarian regimes in East Germany and Czechoslovakia and Poland. So, for instance, Ceaușescu in Romania made a law that women had to have four babies, and they had to have a pregnancy test every month. And if they weren’t pregnant, why not? … It’s not me who made this stuff up; the human race made it up, unfortunately,” she added.
“It is a warning,” Atwood said of her book. “I have never believed it can’t happen here. I’ve never believed that. And more and more people are joining me in that lack of belief.”
Handmaid costumes have almost become a staple of the pro-abortion movement and are regularly present at Planned Parenthood rallies.
Related: ‘White Fright’: CNN’s Chris Cuomo Suggests Pro-Life Legislation Motivated By Racism
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