Believe it or not, the daily mish-mosh of bad hot takes and misinformation known as The View—which miserable cat ladies with an addiction to boxed wine watch nationwide—is celebrating its 25th anniversary. For the big party, they packed up and went to the Bahamas. While sitting on the beach, they decided to opine on recent Supreme Court decisions. Thanks to the miracle of social media, we have the coven’s complete reaction to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health ruling.
Needless to say, they are very upset about Dobbs. In the setup, host Whoopi Goldberg wanted to clarify that the Dobbs decision was about the right to make decisions about someone else’s reproductive choices. That is the first fail. The case was actually about whether the right to an abortion is in the Constitution. If it is not, it is up to the people’s elected representatives, who can be fired by those same people, to enact laws to govern it.
While Joy Behar said she was shocked, she and Ana Navarro both admitted that the leak of the draft decision in Dobbs should have alerted them that the overturn of Roe was imminent. For some reason, Sunny Hostin was shocked that the leaked draft was almost identical to the final. “The court is basically saying it’s time to welcome all this new life, yet we can shoot them with our newly available, completely unrestricted guns,” she opined. I listen so you don’t have to.
Related: FACT CHECK: The Truth About Miscarriages, Ectopic Pregnancies, and the End of Roe v. Wade
Hostin lamented that precedent didn’t seem to matter anymore and was very upset by Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurrence that there were other decisions by the Supreme Court that had no basis in the Constitution. Since SCOTUS handed it down, Roe v. Wade has been widely criticized, even by legal scholars on the Left, as a poorly reasoned legal decision that conferred a non-existent right. And while the decisions Thomas noted are probably similarly situated, there is no indication the court will take them up.
Navarro tried to recover from her horrid CNN appearance where she essentially said we need to allow abortion so that families don’t have to take responsibility for disabled children. She, of course, loves her disabled family members. But understanding the burden they create is the reason Navarro thinks families should have a choice to terminate their lives. Then she acted like the pro-life movement wasn’t willing to talk about support services and adoption. Uh, okay. Was she ever a Republican?
Co-host Sara Haines was part stupid and part bright. First, the silly part. She said the ruling would not reduce the number of abortions; instead, it would reduce safe abortions, which is absurd. Planned Parenthood and the pro-choice movement have fought every state law designed to ensure safe procedures. They object to basic requirements, like ensuring that doctors performing abortions have hospital admitting privileges in case of an emergency. Deaths from abortions during the year SCOTUS decided Roe were about the same for legal and illegal procedures. The trope that back-alley abortions caused an untold number of deaths before Roe has been debunked for years.
Haines showed much better command of the issue when she called out Democrats who had a supermajority in 1993, and as recently as 2009, yet did nothing to codify abortion rights. She is absolutely correct on this point since, as Navarro pointed out, it has been a wedge issue for decades. “Everyone knew Roe wasn’t safe because of the way it was decided,” Haines emphasized. Precisely, Sara. And that is why SCOTUS overturned it in Dobbs.
Related: EXCLUSIVE: Allen West Says Dobbs Won’t Prevent a Red Wave in November
Then Goldberg put up the lie that Planned Parenthood focuses on annual exams for women. It’s misleading to say that Planned Parenthood provides mammograms, and if a woman has an irregular pap smear, she gets referred to a doctor that can provide care. Full-service women’s health centers are a much better option. As one Twitter user noted:
Odd that all these Planned Parenthood clinics are closing simply because of one Supreme Court decision, when we’ve been told for decades that abortion is ‘only a small part’ of what Planned Parenthood does. 🤔🤔🤔
— Darrell B. Harrison (@D_B_Harrison) June 25, 2022
Goldberg went on a rant that the Dobbs case was about families being able to make their own reproductive choices. It was not. And nothing will change in New Jersey, where Goldberg lives, because SCOTUS handed the issue back to the states. The most violent protests over the weekend took place in states with the most permissive abortion laws. Hopefully, they will go home as soon as they figure out that we are sufficiently balkanized on these issues and nothing will change where they live. Texas has had an effective ban on abortion for months, and no one in California rioted. There is no need to do it now.
And perhaps someone should tell the ladies they are sitting on a beach in a country that forces women to have babies. Even the poor women Goldberg, President Biden, and other Democrats are so worried about. The U.S. State Department says that in the Bahamas, 90% of residents report a religious affiliation, and 70% are Protestant. According to the Bahamian penal code today, anyone involved in an abortion can be sentenced to 10 years in prison. That includes the women. Some state laws in the U.S. seek to hold the abortion provider accountable.
Maybe the staff at The View should check abortion access before booking their next trip. Why would they want to give all that money to a country that doesn’t share their values? Most Caribbean countries have similar laws. Even Europe is far more restrictive than deep-blue states like California and New York. Perhaps the ladies of “The View” would be more comfortable in China or North Korea, which have abortion policies as expansive as those Roe and Casey forced nationwide, for their next big shindig.
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