Ocasio-Cortez Gets Fact-Checked on Abortion

“I have better uses for my time.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., got called out on Twitter Wednesday for promoting a false victimhood narrative about Alabama’s new abortion law.

In response to being publicly fact-checked by One America News Network’s Liz Wheeler, Ocasio-Cortez refused to admit she was wrong. Instead, the freshman congresswoman spun a bizarre new fantasy of persecution and trauma.

The saga started earlier in the day when Ocasio-Cortez joined a chorus of liberals in condemning Alabama for effectively banning abortion. Seeking to ramp up the outrage, she issued a misleading tweet suggesting that the state planned to imprison women for getting the procedure, including victims of rape and incest.

“Alabama lawmakers are making all abortions a felony punishable w jailtime,[]incl women victimized by rape+incest,” Ocasio-Cortez declared.

“Of course, no added punishments for rapists,” she added, in a non-sequitur that would anyway seem to bely her stated commitment to criminal justice reform.

Alabama lawmakers are making all abortions a felony punishable w jailtime,incl women victimized by rape+incest.

Of course, no added punishments for rapists.

It’s going to @GovernorKayIvey‘s desk. She will decide the future of women’s rights in Alabama.https://t.co/IRR0EtsxHp

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 15, 2019

At first, Ocasio-Cortez seemed to have gotten away with the tweet, which quickly racked up tens of thousands of likes. But then Wheeler, a hardline anti-abortion activist, arrived in Ocasio-Cortez’s replies, and called B.S.

“This is a lie,” the “Tipping Point” host asserted. “Under no circumstances would women be jailed for abortions. The abortionist would be penalized.”

Indeed, under the Alabama law, doctors who provide banned abortions can be charged with a felony and imprisoned for up to 99 years. The only only exceptions are cases when a women’s health is seriously threatened.

Ocasio-Cortez responded by denying that she has implied the law would imprison women who get abortions, as opposed to the doctors who perform them. All Wheeler needed to do was “read the context clues in the grammar of the tweet,” she said.

Anyway, she suggested, the law still victimized survivors of rape and incest indirectly, and Wheeler should be ashamed of herself.

It’s a felony punishable by jail, incl cases of women pregnant by rape or incest. Twitter is 280 chars – 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

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 15, 2019

 

Wheeler dismissed Ocasio-Cortez excuse, and accused her of politicizing “victims of child rape” as part of a Democratic effort to fully legalize abortion.

That’s when Ocasio-Cortez played her trump card. Saying she was simply engaging in the same “bad faith” game of semantics as Wheeler, the Democrat pointed out that some doctors female, so the Alabama law could put some women in jail.

Actually it *would* be a felony for women – if those women are medical providers. See? According to your own semantic standard, you “lied.”

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.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 15, 2019

Taking Ocasio-Cortez’s logic seriously would mean that her original tweet was really expressing concern for female abortion doctors who have been “victimized by rape+incest.” Image: A woman impregnated by a family member, who overcomes the trauma to serve as an abortion doctor for other victims of incest, only to end up jailed, potentially for life, by a cruel Republican law.

What kind of monster could side against such an uber-victim?

In reality, though, no female abortion doctor survivors of incest are likely to go to jail for performing an abortion in Alabama any time soon. Although Gov. Kay Ivey signed the bill into law later Wednesday, she almost certainly did not “decide the future of women’s right” in the state, as Ocasio-Cortez claimed at the end of her original tweet.

Rather, it will be judges who have the final say. Even supporters of Alabama’s abortion ban have acknowledged that it will likely be blocked in court, as has happened with a series of less extreme abortion laws, including Georgia’s “heartbeat bill.”

The real purpose of the bill, according to its architects, is to test the Supreme Court’s commitment to Roe v. Wade, a landmark 1972 ruling that pro-choice advocates cherish for guaranteeing access to the procedure. At issue would be the appropriate balance between a woman’s right to privacy and the value of preserving prenatal life.

However, by the time Wheeler challenged Ocasio-Cortez on those very issues, the Democrat had already checked out of the conversation, saying “I have better uses for my time.”

 

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