Once upon a time, my wife worked with a woman who had fled Romania under the Ceaușescu regime. It was quite a story: Night-time border crossings, underground paperwork, refugee camps, bribes. The country was then rigidly Catholic, and women of child-bearing years were subject to compulsory gynecological examinations to investigate whether or not they might have had an abortion.
I’m reminded of that by learning this tidbit about the Virginia GOP’s nominee for Attorney General.
If a woman in Virginia has a miscarriage without a doctor present, they must report it within 24 hours to the police or risk going to jail for a full year. At least, that’s what would have happened if a bill introduced by Virginia state Sen. Mark Obenshain (R) had become law.
And yet, the Virginia Republican Party wants to make Obenshain into the state’s top prosecutor.
This is ugly stuff, and proceeds from a deeply un-American contempt for the right and ability of our fellow citizens to make their own decisions — but why, really, is anybody surprised? That is the inescapable implication of the things the Teavangelicals believe.
We are all, remember, no damn good, depraved, with hearts filled with an inexhaustible yearning toward evil.
If you actually believe that, that we are all innately wicked and deserving of only contempt and loathing, but also believe that your neighbors are worse off because you have at least been blessed with special cosmic insights denied those ‘others,’ then it inescapably follows that they require your supervision.