Republican Lawmaker Says Abortion Isn’t Health Care—And He Knows That Because He Was a Veterinarian and “Did Thousands of Ultrasounds on Animals”

From the comments of Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin to Ohio Republicans’ claim that you can “reimplant an ectopic pregnancy,” there’s a long history of conservatives proudly talking out of their assess when it comes to abortion and the female anatomy. That unfortunate combination—not knowing jack-shit about something and nevertheless positioning themselves as authorities— was on display on Thursday, when Wisconsin State Rep. Joel Kitchens argued in favor of a 14-week abortion ban, and cited his past work as a veterinarian as the reason people should take his words seriously.

Yes, on the floor of the Wisconsin State Capitol, Kitchens declared: “The question is whether abortion is health care, and if you believe that a fetus is a human life, then abortion is not health care. You know, in my veterinary career, I did thousands of ultrasounds on animals—you know, determining pregnancy and that kind of thing. So I think I know mammalian fetal development better than probably anyone here. And in my mind, there’s absolutely no question that’s a life, and I think the science backs me up on that.”

The science, of course, does not back Kitchens up. Moreover, doctors for actual humans—whose patients, again, are not, say, horses or rats—agree that abortion is health care. Those same doctors—who, I repeat, treat humans—also agree that the pregnant person carrying the fetus is “a life,” and thus should get to make decisions about what happens to their body. (As for the idea that performing “thousands of ultrasounds on animals” makes Kitchens just as much of an expert on the human body as he is on cats and humpback whales, well, we’d love him to walk into a labor-and-delivery ward, offer to take over on an emergency C-section, and see what the reaction is, both from the on-call doctors and the patient.)

On Thursday, Kitchens was not the only one spouting what could charitably be described as effluent of the mouth. Wisconsin state representative Ron Tusler used his time to try to fact-check a colleague on whether the Bible is in favor of forced birth—which he insisted it is, citing the fact that it includes “at least” one story about an 88-year-old woman having a child.

“One of the things I heard came from the representative from the 20th,” Tusler said. “She said that she can’t think of one situation in the Bible where God forced a woman to have a baby contrary to her personal health…. Well, I would ask her to never let her Bible get dusty…. For example, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. Estimates are she was 88 years old when she was told that she was going to have John the Baptist. Other estimates I’ve heard are at least over 60, but 88 seems to be the common number. And at 88, her own husband laughed at an angel when he was told, and she was told, that he was going to have a baby. So that was at least one situation where, certainly, an 88-year-old, it’s contrary to her health to be having a baby—and here she is being told she’s going to have a baby, and being asked by God, and being required to do that, and having John the Baptist, arguably the best Christian that’s ever lived.”