The American state of Michigan is currently debating a law which would impose heavy new regulations on abortion providers and ban all abortions after 20 weeks. Speaking out against the law on Wednesday, Democratic representative Lisa Brown sought to highlight the hypocrisy of propounding religious arguments against abortion by pointing out that her Jewish faith allows abortions which save a mother’s life to occur at any stage in a pregnancy. Brown told the State House of Representatives:
I have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs. Why are you asking me to adopt yours?
She followed up with a snappy sign-off:
And finally, Mr. Speaker, I’m flattered that you’re all so interested my vagina, but ‘no’ means ‘no.’
When Brown returned to the House on Thursday, she was told by State Republicans that she would not be allowed to speak about the next bill under consideration, on school employee retirement. Republican representative Mike Callton told the Detroit News:
What she said was offensive. It was so offensive, I don’t even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company.
A spokesperson for the state Republican party confirmed that they had decided that Brown’s comments “violated the decorum of the house”.
Michigan already has fairly harsh abortion restrictions. Public funding is only available in cases of “life endangerment, rape or incest”, and a woman must receive state-directed counseling that includes information explicitly designed to discourage her from having an abortion, then wait 24 hours, before she can have one.
Naturally, twitter leapt on the news. #vagina started trending shortly after the story broke, with people sharing alternate words Brown could use to get around the ban, and, naturally, that evolved into the trending topic #vaginamovielines. For some reason.
Brown wasn’t the only Democrat banned from the House for speaking out. Representative Barb Bryum was also censured for “causing a disturbance” on Wednesday when “she wasn’t allowed to introduce an amendment to the abortion regulations bill banning men from getting a vasectomy unless the sterilization procedure was necessary to save a man’s life.”
Bryum told the Detroid News:
If we truly want to make sure children are born, we would regulate vasectomies.
Magnificent trolling, there.
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