Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said male sponsors of anti-abortion bills such as Georgia’s heartbeat bill don’t know anything about a woman’s body beyond the “things they want from it.” Three of the five sponsors of the bill are women.
“‘6 weeks pregnant’ = 2 weeks late on your period,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted just after midnight. “Most of the men writing these bills don’t know the first thing about a woman’s body outside of the things they want from it. It’s relatively common for a woman to have a late period + not be pregnant. So this is a backdoor ban. For context, this kicks in within days of a typical at-home test working. If you were sexually assaulted (stress delays cycle), took a morning-after pill (throws off cycle), or have an irregular cycle, you‘d have no idea. There are a TON of ways this law ignores basic biology.”
For context, this kicks in within days of a typical at-home test working.
If you were sexually assaulted (stress delays cycle), took a morning-after pill (throws off cycle), or have an irregular cycle, you‘d have no idea.
There are a TON of ways this law ignores basic biology.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 8, 2019
Georgia’s heartbeat bill, which outlaws abortions once a heartbeat is detected roughly about the sixth week of pregnancy, was signed into state law Tuesday. Of the five primary sponsors with their names on the bill, previously known as HB 481, three of them are women. Reps. Jodi Lott, Darlene Taylor, and Ginny Ehrhart are all Republicans along with Republican Reps. Ed Setzler and Josh Bonner. The bill does not state a timeline of six weeks, but it instead focuses on the detection of a “human heartbeat.”
“First, I’ll say that protecting innocent life should be every legislator’s responsibility, regardless of gender,” Bonner told the Washington Examiner. “Second, you can place Rep. Ocasio-Cortez in the category of nonresidents that hard-working Georgians have no interest in hearing from, especially when it involves telling us how to run our state. And third, if the congresswoman wants to use the standard of only voting on issues of which they are familiar, her votes would be restricted to the point of only being able to vote present for the day.”
While a Gallup poll from 2018 showed that most Americans support a ban on abortions after the first trimester of a pregnancy, polls in Georgia and Ohio showed support for a heartbeat bill, commonly considered a six-week ban, trailed opposition, but neither opinion crossed the 50% mark for a majority.
Ocasio-Cortez did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
