The Internet Is Making Us All Stupider

Literally, the first word of the damn thing. https://t.co/5DUXtbLnGq pic.twitter.com/MMEcaJa4mB

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 27, 2022

https://t.co/oCeQMspc7E pic.twitter.com/o7r0KQHrsR

— YesterdayIsAHardWordForHat (@Popehat) July 26, 2022

Faced with a steady stream of horror stories about the impact of abortion bans on patients suffering failed pregnancies, anti-abortion advocates have retreated into a paranoid conspiracy theory that doctors are trying to "create viral stories making abortion bans look culpable." pic.twitter.com/RapvDOqRVg

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) July 26, 2022

They caught the car and now women will suffer. pic.twitter.com/9OoVeTDk1M

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) July 26, 2022

If you control the definitions, you control the conversation. Except you can't slice the baloney so thinly it only has one side, especially with a legal scalpel. "Abortion" is not defined in law as "elective surgery to terminate a pregnancy." Because lawmakers fear the tricksy womenses who will fool the doctor into performing elective surgery as a medical procedure.

Of course, allowing it for the health of the mother is not a loophole, because the only alternative is to prove that in court; on behalf of the mother, the doctor, the medical care staff and facility, and all persons with knowledge of what some would prefer be a crime.  And no, this is not a solution:

At Public Notice, I wrote about how, if you're on a jury, you can nullify forced birth laws. https://t.co/jIDdZCLZa7

— Noah Berlatsky (@nberlat) July 27, 2022

It's just crackpottery from the other direction. How many ob/gyn's want to roll the dice that everytime they treat an ectopic pregnancy they'll get a jury that will nullify the law? If that isn't a "let's you and him fight" solution, I don't know what is.

Lavern Spicer is a candidate for the 24th district in Florida.  Her website literally asks "Lavern Who?"  I'm just guessing she has no idea what pronouns are, but she knows they're bad because...reasons.  Maybe she means to define "pronouns" the way Alexandra DeSanctis Marr wants to define "abortion."*  In a way absolutely no one else uses the words.

*She writes for the National Review.  I should have known. It's an argument worthy of Bill Buckley, just without the vocabulary flourishes.