Just like the Tweed ring: equal credit, equal blame
The move in Oklahoma to absolutely criminalize abortion with imprisonment and fines seems extreme, but many forget how extreme—this idea of implementing punishments on women or their doctors is one Trump himself had to back off of in 2016 because the moderator and crowd saw it as beyond the pale. The nation was not ready to contemplate such an idea. Six years later, the Oklahoma legislature passes this bill with little to no care of how it will look to outsiders, because there’s strength in numbers. No one person is the lightning rod; they can take credit as a whole, but blame is diffuse.
But when you add in the proposal floated by Missouri’s governor to restrict the free movement across state lines of any person who might be pregnant; and you take Tennessee’s plan to abolish the threshold for entrance into marriage—the fervor and glee emanating from that possibility—and it becomes clear.
In the fascist utopia these right-wingers mean to build, we will have child brides, twelve and up. These not-yet-women, in the case of pregnancy, will be chained to their husbands like serfs to the land. Instead of being exhorted to stay “pure” until the age of majority, as we see now in evangelical/fundamentalist circles with their virginity rituals and pageants and balls, in the utopia the men will be able to pass direct custody of their daughters, intact and whole, a clear hymenal chain of custody.
Abortion by pill? Hell, we won’t even allow reproduction prevention by pill. The husband must be the one to determine when his seed comes to fruition.
This is the true grooming.This is the sanitized version of what a psychopath looks for in a mate. (Trigger warning Indecency warning: these are the unvarnished views of a man justifying his hebephilic desires.)
This is the freedom they want to bestow on all the males in the tribe. It’s exactly the same.