The pro-abortion cabal recently released a fearmongering political video that accuses “Trump Republicans” of desiring to “criminalize young Alabama women who travel for reproductive care.”
In the video, a visibly scared young woman and her supportive female friend flee across Alabama toward the state line in a well-preserved station wagon. (You know they are in Alabama thanks to the subtle addition of a T-shirt, worn by the blond protagonist, that reads “ALABAMA.”)
When just one mile away from the state’s border, an evil white cop, wearing a pair of Tom-Cruisean aviators, pulls them over. Armed with a pregnancy test, the police officer leans over the driver’s window and demands, in an exaggerated Southern accent, “Miss, I’m gonna need you to step out of the vehicle, and take a pregnancy test.”
BOOM
The blast of a generic suspenseful music cuts the dialogue. The poor protagonist is forced on the hood of the car while the cop handcuffs her hands behind her back. She stares grotesquely into the camera for an uncomfortable length of time. A female narrator commands: “Stop them — by taking action at RighttoTravel.org.”
Powerful stuff (raises fist).
First and foremost, I was surprised by the laughably poor cinematic quality of the short video. Given that none other than California governor Gavin Newsom initially shared the video on X, I would have hoped for better quality from the duke of Hollywood.
The actors wouldn’t even make the cut for an off-season Hallmark movie. The exaggerated expressions and forced movements could have been outperformed by many a high-school theater department.
Everything from plot to the costuming is deliciously cliché. The only bit of originality is when the Magic Mike cop taps on the driver’s window with a pregnancy test — really a triumphant use of a prop.
The corny, cringey 30-second ad is not merely painful to watch — it is also shamelessly deceptive.
With gauche, fear-mongering flair, the ad insinuates that Republicans plan to support legislation that would enable police officers to arrest pregnant women, living in states with abortion bans, who are traveling elsewhere to seek an abortion. This is blatantly untrue.
The video was made by an organization called “Campaign for Democracy” (yet another misleading title of a group that exists solely to expand and protect abortion access).
The site proclaims that
Republicans are not stopping at overturning Roe vs. Wade. Now they want to lock women and girls down completely, taking away their constitutional right to travel.
Three states — Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Alabama — are considering bills that ban minors from traveling out of state to get an abortion without parental consent — no matter if it’s a case of incest or if there is abuse in the family.
My grandpa would have called this kind of demagogic lie “malarkey.”
Every piece of pro-life legislation proposed or passed in state legislatures since Roe v. Wade was overturned has sought to ensure that mothers cannot be a possible target for prosecution. The weight of the law always falls on abortion providers — or in this case, abortion liaisons — and not on the mother herself.
The actual text of the proposed Alabama bill, H.B. 378, states:
This bill would provide that it is a Class A misdemeanor for any person, with the intent to conceal an abortion from a minor’s parents or guardian, to harbor or transport a minor girl and obtain, or aid and abet her in obtaining, an abortion or abortion-inducing drug
The intent of the bill is clear: It is meant to ensure that a pregnant minor is not smuggled across state lines for an abortion — by an unauthorized adult — without the knowledge of her parents. Again, the legal consequences would not fall on the pregnant girl, but upon the unauthorized adult in question.
The bill specifically aims to penalize organizations like Planned Parenthood that have self-righteously promised to provide abortion access to minors in pro-life states — operating outside of the law and without the knowledge of the girls’ parents.
As with every piece of pro-life legislation, wild-eyed rebuttals from pro-abortion groups have cited the potentiality of rape and incest cases as reason to strike down the bill. What if the girl can’t seek parental approval to travel across state lines and receive an abortion, because her own parent impregnated her?
Obviously, such a case would be absolutely horrible — but even in this worst-case scenario, there is no world in which the pregnant daughter would be arrested. (One would hope, however, that the father would be thrown in jail for child sex abuse.)
If a girl is truly terrified to tell her own parents that she is pregnant — for such malevolent and perverse reasons as these — that would be a case for Child Protective Services to handle, not Planned Parenthood.
Ultimately, the “Right to Travel” ad reveals the ideological stagnation of abortion fanatics, whose only tool of persuasion is to scream “YOU HATE WOMEN!” at pro-life advocates. In pleasing parallel, the absurdity of the ad reveals the broader absurdity of their position.