How Abortion Access Dies in America

Berkeley professor thinks this is winning

Berkeley law professor Khiara Bridges probably thinks that she scored points in this exchange yesterday.

If she accomplished anything with her testimony, however, it was to boost Republicans and seal the fate of the Democratic majority in both houses of Congress this November.

To anyone who isn’t living in the epistemic bubble of identity politics, Bridges offered a perfect display of the progressive hubris around “gender identity” that is destroying the electability of Democrats.

According to Professor Bridges, to merely doubt that men can get pregnant is denying the existence of trans people, and therefore actual violence against them.

You know — just like expressing doubt that cats can bark is to deny the existence of transdogs and literally murder them.

The heated exchange began after Bridges used the phrase “people with a capacity for pregnancy” instead of “women” during her testimony about the Supreme Court case that struck down Roe v Wade last month.

Like “Latinx,” a formulation created by white liberals, new euphemisms for the female sex are repelling the very voters they were supposed to support.

Dehumanizing phrases used on your own supporters, no matter how well-intentioned, will naturally reduce enthusiasm and turnout on Election Day.

Republicans understand this perfectly, so they are now seeking exactly this sort of public confrontation.

Prof. Bridges was only too happy to oblige, because absurd as it sounds to normal people, she actually thinks this is what winning looks like.

When Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri asked Bridges to clarify whether she meant “women,” the professor responded with a lecture, her words oozing with the kind of elitist snobbery that drove millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump.

“Many women,” she said, immediately correcting herself to reduce women to a subset of their own sex class: “cis women, have the capacity for pregnancy.”

But then “many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy,” she added, answering a question no one had asked her.

Bridges went on to explain that “there are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy as well as non-binary people who are capable of pregnancy,” name-dropping two new varieties of adult human female that are very hip this season.

When Sen. Hawley asked her whether abortion is a “women’s rights issue,” Bridges doubled-down on the indignant tone.

“We can recognize that this impacts women while also recognizing that it impacts other groups, those things are not mutually exclusive, Sen. Hawley,” Bridges said, still pretending that the “other groups” she had named are not also women, howevermuch they may reject the name for themselves.

Pressed to explain what the “core” of the right to an abortion is, Bridges became downright hostile.

“I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic. It opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing them,” she said, offering zero evidence that anyone is harmed by using the word “women.”

“I’m denying that trans people exist by asking you about women having pregnancies?” Hawley asked as the professor interrupted: “Are you?! Are you?! Are you?!”

Hawley, one of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate, could not have asked for a better sound byte. Helpfully, progressives began sharing the clip all over social media under the mistaken impression that their view is the popular one.

They are wrong, and they will find out. Sadly for them, they will find out when Republicans control Congress next year and use that power to attack abortion access, which they can do because they know exactly what women are.

Like the ACLU, NARAL, and all the liberal organizations that gave up on defending Roe v Wade years ago, Prof. Bridges has decided that pandering to a tiny minority is more important than forming a political majority to protect half the human race.

This is how abortion access dies in America: to the thunderous applause of liberals who think they are winning — and Republicans reassured that they actually are winning.