On Thursday night’s edition of MSNBC’s All In, host Chris Hayes turned to none other than former Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate and abortion activist Wendy Davis to trash Jeb Bush over his views concerning the need for two-parent households and Senator Lindsey Graham’s introduction of a bill in the Senate that would prohibit abortions after 20 weeks.
Offering little more in than liberal talking points, the pair conversed back and forth on Bush’s supposed hit on single parents and Graham’s introduction of a bill that mirrors that of legislation that passed the House on May 13 and how both serve as further examples of the Republican Party’s supposedly anti-women views.
Prior to Davis joining the conversation, Hayes commented on Bush’s thoughts about parenting in a 1995 book that the liberal MSNBC host described as having “advocated for increased public shaming of unwed mothers.”
Concerning Bush’s response to a question on Thursday about the book, Hayes summarized his answer as essentially being that “his views have evolved since the ‘90s, or the 1850's, for that matter.”
When Hayes asked Davis to give her views on Bush, the former Texas State Senator chalked it up to him being “part and parcel of the women problem that we're going to see with these GOP presidential candidates” and that she was struck by how “Jeb Bush is supposed to be one of the more reasonable of the bunch.”
Despite being someone who has been less than truthful herself on this issue, Davis continued:
[C]learly, he's demonstrated a complete lack of understanding about the changes and the support that we, as a society, through our policies and otherwise ought to be providing to women who are doing the most difficult there is and that is to raise a child on their own.
Being in obvious agreement, Hayes added that Bush’s views struck him “as a kind of message in a bottle or time capsule from a little bit of a different political time.”
Concerning Graham’s move to introduce a pro-life piece of legislation, Davis continued to bloviate and hypocritically blast elected officials for “using women as a political wedge” [emphasis mine]:
Well, again, this is Senator Graham demonstrating the problem that the GOP presidential candidates have with women. This is clearly unconstitutional, and in the states where it's been challenged and gone up to circuit courts, it's been held to be unconstitutional. If it makes its way to the Supreme Court, I expect the same response will occur and again, it is a politician using women as a political wedge to try to gain an advantage in a political contest, in a way that has devastating impact, ultimately, on women's rights and constitutional protections.
For as much as the pair talked in the segment about the so-called unconstitutionality of a 20-week ban, Davis should know (as both a law school graduate and former state legislator) that 14 states nationwide already have such bans in place that have yet to be struck down by the Supreme Court.
The relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes on June 11 can be found below.
MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes
June 10, 2015
8:27 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS HAYES: Jeb Bush was in Poland today trying to explain a passage in his 1995 book that advocated for increased public shaming of unwed mothers. Huffington Post first unearthed the passage from Jeb’s 1995 book Profiles in Character. In a chapter titled “the restoration of shame,” Bush cited Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 book The Scarlet Letter as an example of the good old days...Today in Warsaw, Bush chuckled when asked about the passage by MSNBC’s own Benji Sarlin and explained that his views have evolved since the '90s, or the 1850s for that matter.
(....)
DAVIS: Well, I think it's part and parcel of the women problem that we're going to see with these GOP presidential candidates and what's interesting me is that Jeb Bush is supposed to be one of the more reasonable of the bunch and clearly he's demonstrated a complete lack of understanding about the changes and the support that we, as a society, through our policies and otherwise ought to be providing to women who are doing the most difficult there is and that is to raise a child on their own.
HAYES: It also strikes me as a kind of message in a bottle or time capsule from a little bit of a different political time.
(....)
HAYES: [T]hat brings me to a bill introduced by Lindsey Graham today in the Senate, which would create a 20-week abortion ban, that's a modeled on legislation that has sprouted up across the country, in our own Texas, for example. What is going to happen? This seems inevitably headed towards the courts and the most aggressive attempt at a sort of frontal assault we've seen on Roe that we've seen in while.
DAVIS: Well, again, this is Senator Graham demonstrating the problem that the GOP presidential candidates have with women. This is clearly unconstitutional, and in the states where it's been challenged and gone up to circuit courts, it's been held to be unconstitutional. If it makes its way to the Supreme Court, I expect the same response will occur and again, it is a politician using women as a political wedge to try to gain an advantage in a political contest, in a way that has devastating impact, ultimately, on women's rights and constitutional protections.
HAYES: You know, it strikes me that Roe still exists today essentially as a Supreme Court holding, but that the actual on the ground reality is that it's essentially been functionally overturned in a lot of places.
