Republicans Are Redefining ‘Miscarriage’

FROM THE ARTICLE

“As the Trump Administration perpetuates devastating and harmful anti-immigrant sentiment with every decision they make, we know it was a calculated and intentional decision that Texas’s Attorney General Ken Paxton targeted a Latina midwife committed to working in a primarily Spanish-speaking community, many of whom are immigrants.”
Physicians for Reproductive Health

Let’s start with the arrests in Texas. Yesterday, I wrote about Republicans’ messaging strategy—specifically about how Attorney General Ken Paxton and his allies are framing this as an issue of people practicing medicine “without a license.” It’s an especially notable attack given that Paxton is charging a midwife. As law professor Mary Ziegler pointed out in Slate, Paxton picked Rojas “to signal that midwives who provide abortions are unsafe, unqualified, and dishonest.”

But the Republican messaging doesn’t end there: As I’ve noted, it’s no accident that Paxton is targeting people who serve a predominantly low-income, non-English-speaking community. The goal is to make those arrested seem as unsympathetic as possible by tapping into American racism and classism.