Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves blew off concerns over the fact that a trigger law due to take effect in Mississippi if Roe v. Wade is overturned will inevitably mean that many of them, especially poor women, will suffer severe harm, mutilation, and in many cases, death.
Reeves told CNN's Jake Tapper that he hopes Roe is overturned and that Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban is upheld, and Tapper reminding him that it won't just be abortions after 15 weeks that are banned if that happens:
TAPPER: So the state of Mississippi also has a law in the books that would ban all abortions, with exceptions only for rape and the life of the mother, that would snap into effect -- it's called a snapback law -- snap into effect just days after Roe is overturned, if Roe is overturned.
If that happens, would you start enforcing that in your state, the almost complete ban, regardless of how many weeks of the pregnancy?
Reeves pretended he wasn't sure what would happen if Roe were overturned until Tapper pinned him down on whether he would enforce that trigger law in his state, with Reeves admitting that he would:
TAPPER: So, is that a yes, that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, you will enforce the almost total abortion ban in Mississippi that exists in the inevitability or in the situation where Roe v. Wade is overturned, yes?
REEVES: Yes, Jake, that is a yes, because, if you believe, as I believe very strongly, that innocent unborn child in the mother's womb is, in fact, a child, the most important word when we talk about unborn children is not unborn, but it's children.
And so, yes, I will do everything I can to protect the lives of those children.
Which was followed by Reeves blowing off concerns over the impact this would have on women's health:
TAPPER: So, the country has been here before, before 1973.
And what happens in reality is, women of means are still able to get abortions, but poor women, young women, vulnerable women end up often seeking abortions in ways that can cause them severe harm, mutilation, if not death in some cases.
So, do you acknowledge that this step will result in some women and almost -- almost certainly getting seriously hurt, some even dying?
REEVES: Well, I certainly would hope that that would not be the case.
But what I would tell you, Jake, is that since Roe was enacted in 1973, there have been 62 million American babies that have been killed through this process. And I think that those babies in their mother's womb don't have the ability to stand up for themselves. And that's why they have to have people like me and others around this nation that, for years, have tried to stand up for unborn children. I think we have to do everything we can as policy-makers to improve the quality of public health in our state.
And when you look at this pandemic, there are a lot of negatives that have come from the pandemic, but one of the hopefully silver linings that come out of dealing with the pandemic over the last year-and-a- half is that we have seen significant investments in infrastructure, both from the state and federal level, in our public health system.
Reeves knows full well that will be the case, but that doesn't seem to matter much to this forced birth crowd. Tapper also asked Reeves about the fact that his state ranks 50th in the country in infant mortality and near last when it comes to childhood hunger, and how that squares with their so-called "culture of life." Reeves' only response was that he wants to pass policies to improve those things. Tapper, of course, didn't press him on just what those policies are and ended the interview.
They have no policies to improve the lives of most of their constituents. All they have is hatred and wedge issues to run on to keep them distracted from that fact.
