SENATOR RICK SCOTT (R-Fla) MAKES A FALSE CLAIM ON DOCTORS

 

…The massive protests against the leaked draft decision to possibly overturn Roe v. Wade caused this fencing around the Supreme Court.  (This has never happened before.)

 

Republicans state legislators and governors have been sponsoring many anti-abortion laws that are causing national protests.

“Joe Biden and the Democrats have and will continue to spread lies about where Republicans stand on abortion and women’s health care …. Republicans DO NOT want to throw doctors and women in jail.”

This was the false statement by the Florida Senator on May3rd.  It also earn Senator Scott Four Pinocchio’s by the Washington Post Fact Checkers

Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, issued a memo with this proposed talking points on abortion after the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, which in 1973 made abortion legal across the United States.  That was 49 years ago and the law had faced down many attempts to overturn it.

The problem with this talking point is that one can easily find laws proposed or passed by these same Republicans that would jail doctors.

We can start with Scott himself. Along with 44 other Republican senators, he is co-sponsor of a bill, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that makes it a criminal offense to perform an abortion if the development of the fetus is at 20 weeks or more. A violator is subject to criminal penalties, including: a fine, a prison term of up to five years, or both.

It also asks the obvious question: who would perform an abortion other than a doctor, that the senator says he doesn’t want to throw in jail.

In Scott’s home state of Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill last month that bans virtually all abortions after a gestational age of 15 weeks, even in cases of rape or incest. “If a physician violates the ban, they would be guilty of a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine,” said the Florida Democrat.   That would be another doctor that would be both fined and sent to jail.

In Oklahoma, the Republican-dominated legislature passed, and the Republican governor signed, a bill that made abortion a felony and penalized doctors who perform abortions. A doctor convicted of violating the law could face up to 10 years in prison and $100,000 in fines. “The penalties are for the doctor, not for the woman,” said GOP state Rep. Jim Olsen, who sponsored the bill.  Another doctor would go to jail.

In 2019, Alabama’s Republican governor signed a law that put doctors who perform abortions in the same legal category, Class A felony, as rapists, murderers and kidnappers. The minimum sentence for a Class A felony is 10 years, but it can go as high as 99 years in prison or life.  And another doctor would be headed for jail.

There are many more examples, such as a new law in Arizona that threaten doctors who perform certain abortions with a minimum of six months in jail and a GOP proposal in Ohio to punish doctors who perform abortions with up to two years in jail.

To sum it up, this talking point by Senator Scott is total bunk. Anyone who made this claim would be making a fool of themselves.

Copyright G. Ater 2022