https://news.yahoo.com/law-professor-rebukes-josh-hawley-183451123.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
Law professor rebukes Josh Hawley’s ‘transphobic’ line of questioning in abortion rights hearing
In a series of extraordinary testimony to a Senate committee on the future of abortion in the US after the dissolve of Roe v Wade, an abortion rights advocate and law professor issued a sharp rebuke to Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who appeared to dismiss that transgender people could become pregnant.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on 12 July, the senator from Arkansas took issue with her use of the phrase “people with a capacity for pregnancy”, asking her, “Would that be women?”
“Many women, cis women, have a capacity for pregnancy. Many cis women do not have a capacity for pregnancy. There are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy as well as nonbinary people who are capable of pregnancy,” explained Khiara Bridges, a professor of law at University of California Berkeley School of Law and reproductive health scholar.
“So this isn’t really a women’s right’s issue,” Mr Hawley replied.
“We can recognise this impacts women while also recognising this impacts other groups. Those things are not mutually exclusive, Senator Hawley,” she said.
Mr Hawley then asked: “So your view is, the core of this right is about what?”
“I want to recognise that your line of questioning is transphobic and it opens trans people to violence by not recognising them,” Ms Bridges said.
Mr Hawley responded: “Wow, you’re saying I’m opening up people to violence by asking whether or not women are the folks who can have pregnancies?
Ms Bridges noted that transgender people are disproportionately more likely to attempt suicide. An annual survey from LGBT+ advocacy and suicide intervention organisation The Trevor Project found that transgender and nonbinary youth whose identities were affirmed by their families attempted suicide at half the rate of those who did not.
Most Helpful Opinions