'Abortion tourism': A tidy phrase for punching down at desperate people

[Zorro]

Republicans made it harder to get abortions in red states. Now they have a punchline for trivializing the journeys people undertake to get the procedure.

By the time Ron DeSantis used the phrase “abortion tourism” in a televised interview last weekend, the phrase had already become a favorite little slogan among antiabortion conservatives.

In an interview hosted by the Faith and Freedom Coalition, the Florida governor and presidential candidate was asked a question related to a military policy of funding abortions for active-duty service members who might have to cross state lines in order to access abortions. “They are breaking, violating the law by funding abortion tourism,” DeSantis replied. “We’re running low on ammunition, our recruiting is in the absolute gutter now, and you’re funding abortion tourism?”

In July, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told a news anchor that “the military should not be paying for abortion tourism.” In August, Rep. Randy Weber (R-Tex.) used the phrase when he introduced the Ban Offshore Abortion Tourism (BOAT) Act, in order to “prohibit abortions in maritime jurisdiction.”

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) has used it. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) has used it. Focus on the Family uses it; so does the Christian Coalition of America. All of them use it to describe the same broad concept: A patient who needs an abortion travels to a location where they can get an abortion.

When I did a news search to get a sense of how, and by whom, “abortion tourism” was being employed, I found something interesting: The phrase itself isn’t new; its use dates back at least 40 years ago, mostly in European countries, to neutrally describe the act of individuals crossing national borders to end pregnancies. But in the past 15 months, since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the phrase has bloomed in the United States, used almost exclusively by antiabortion Republicans and with obvious intent: to make pregnant people, whom the party has forced into desperate straits by pushing draconian state laws, seem like harlots on holiday.

https://wapo.st/3PofBbh

[ret5hd]

1. Next up is "recreational abortions"...

You know, where women travel to a nice tourist town, get their nails done, a nice facial peel, maybe get cucumbers on their eyes, a sip of good Chardonnay, then hop over to the clinic for a quick abortion, then back to the hotel spa for a rubdown by an expert masseuse, a relaxing sit in the sauna, a cool swim in the indoor pool, then back home to the daily grind.

Hell, they will be doing that every other week if it’s legal!!! We gotta put a stop to it!!!

[Aristus]

2. Is that like "murder tourism"?

Taking an assault rifle across state lines to a public place and then murdering unarmed people there? Because I'm not putting long odds on the possibility of Republicans objecting to that. Seems like something they would quite approve of. And they might, say, acquit the murderer of all responsibility.

Just saying...

[Kath2]

3. The term shows a total lack of compassion.

It is like empathy does not exist for them.

[SCantiGOP]

4. Somebody should ask him

Why our recruiting is “in the absolute gutter now.”

[Whatthe_Firetruck]

6. Because at the present, they accept...

... Non Christian, non male, non straight, and of course non white people. Not to mention the synthesis of all these things, anyone other than White Christian nationalism patriarchs.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. More:

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has an entire guide related to insidious abortion terminology. It is almost entirely composed of the terms that antiabortion activists use to make abortions sound scarier than they are, and to make the people seeking them sound less trustworthy. “Elective abortion” is a poor phrase, the guide suggests: “The motivation behind the decision to get an abortion should not be judged as ‘elective’ or ‘not elective’ by an external party.” The phrase “chemical abortion” is “a biased term designed to make medication abortion sound scarier than the safe, effective medical intervention it is,” the ACOG list says. The phrase “late-term abortion” has no “medical significance.”