Last week, the North Dakota GOP signed into law SB2150, a near-total abortion ban, with exceptions only for those who can prove their pregnancies are the result of rape or incest in the first six weeks of gestation, and to "prevent the death or a serious health risk" of a pregnant patient (to which the six-week limit does not apply). What lawmakers call "six weeks pregnant" is about one week after someone might first know they were pregnant, if they had very regular periods they were tracking religiously — uncommon, among the incredibly busy and stressed-out mothers who make up the majority of U.S. abortion patients. North Dakota Republicans are celebrating. The party's enthusiastic celebration of this deadly ban has brought some particularly telling language forth from the mouths of its endorsers.
"We talk about rape and incest, and those are horrific circumstances," said Republican State Sen. Janne Myrdal, of Edinburg, North Dakota, speaking in April in support of the bill on the state senate floor. "We certainly want to encourage any child, any woman, that experiences any of this, to immediately go to medical care and get these things taken care of before there's fertilization."
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