If you thought there were nuances to Democratic Alabama state Rep. John Rogers’ pro-abortion remarks this week, he is here to dissuade you of that notion.
Asked Thursday to respond to Donald Trump Jr.’s criticisms of his comments defending abortion, Rogers laughingly told NBC News affiliate WVTM-13 that the president’s son is “evidently retarded. Or crazy. Donald Trump’s son, I know there is something wrong with that boy.”
The Alabama lawmaker added, “I look at him and can tell something is wrong with him. That’s the best defense I have right there for an abortion – looking at him.”
Rogers also said Trump Jr.’s existence on earth “proves the right to make a decision about abortion. Him being born, that proves the right.”
“He’s evidently retarded or crazy.”
Alabama lawmaker responds to @DonaldJTrumpJr‘s reaction to abortion commentshttps://t.co/EPvaOJ64rK pic.twitter.com/RqbQdNqZ2c
— WVTM 13 (@WVTM13) May 2, 2019
Rogers participated in a Democratic-led filibuster this week of the Human Life Protection Act, HB 314, which ended up passing the state House by a vote of 74-3. As Rogers spoke in opposition of the bill, which would make it a felony to perform an abortion at any stage of pregnancy except in cases where it is “necessary in order to prevent a serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother.” Rogers stated, “Some kids are unwanted, so you kill them now or you kill them later.”
“I’m not about to be a male telling a woman what to do with her body,” said Rogers. “You bring them in the world unwanted, unloved, you send them to the electric chair. So, you kill them now or you kill them later.”
The Alabama state representative spent some time explaining that abortion is ultimately a “woman’s choice,” but he also spent a significant amount of time arguing it is sometimes better to terminate children with mental or physical abnormalities.
“Some parents can’t handle a child with problems. It could be retarded. It might have no arms and no legs,” the lawmaker said, according to the Alabama Political Reporter. He added, “I may bring a bill to force all men to have vasectomies. That would end this whole debate. There would be no more abortions and eventually no more voters.”
Understandably, some were shocked by these remarks, including Donald Trump Jr., who called Rogers’ “kill them now or kill them later” defense of abortion “stomach curling.”
“This makes Ralph Northam look like a moderate on abortion,” Trump Jr. said on social media. “Every Democrat running for President needs to be asked where they stand on this. The extreme turn we’ve seen from Dems on abortion recently is truly sickening.”
And thanks to Rogers’ follow-up comments Thursday with local media, we now know that his position on abortion is not as nuanced or “perplexing” as some would have us to believe. Rogers was not making some larger argument about a “woman’s choice,” personal liberty, or the criminal justice system. Rogers supports abortion simply because it allows for the efficient disposal of retarded, deformed, or otherwise “unwanted” children.
That’s it. Eugenics is the whole of his position. He is just apparently too stupid not to say the quiet part aloud.
