"Regardless of your personal belief, I would hope that stopping atrocities against little babies is something that we can agree to put an end to."— U.S. Rep. Kristi Noern, R-S.D., speaking in the House on behalf of an anti-abortion bill.
Or to put it another way, as Rep. Noern might have said, "Regardless of your personal belief, I would hope that you shutting up about your personal belief and letting me decide these things is something we can all agree to." Rep. Noern was disappointed in that regard. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., responded to her by saying that the bill Noern supported was "yet another attempt to endanger women. It is disrespectful to women, it is unsafe for families and it is unconstitutional." Nonetheless, the bill passed the House, 228-196, and sailed on to certain defeat in the Senate. All four of Arkansas's U.S. representatives, all of them Republican, voted for the bill, predictably. In support of bad legislation, they move together like synchronized swimmers. As is customary with anti-abortion bills and their supporters, Rep. Noern was less than honest in her presentation. After the usual chaff about "atrocities" and "murders," she didn't dwell on the fact that the bill subjects doctors found guilty to up to five years in prison, but imposes no criminal penalty on their patients. If abortion is really murder, one would expect that the person who initiated and arranged the murder, who transported the "victim" to the "hit man," would be punished at least as severely. That is how murder for hire is treated in other aspects of our criminal justice system. But the supporters of anti-abortion legislation, Reps. Noern, Crawford, Griffin, Womack and Cotton among them, know the American people wouldn't stand for execution of women already suffering from their decision to have an abortion. So the supporters of the legislation have to lie about it. Again and again.