{"id":19356,"date":"2026-02-26T09:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T09:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/maga-worlds-violent-pregnancy-related-rhetoric-is-on-full-display\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T09:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T09:22:09","slug":"maga-worlds-violent-pregnancy-related-rhetoric-is-on-full-display","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/maga-worlds-violent-pregnancy-related-rhetoric-is-on-full-display\/","title":{"rendered":"MAGA world\u2019s violent pregnancy-related rhetoric is on full display"},"content":{"rendered":"<section>\n<div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-02-25T18:15:03-05:00\">Feb. 25, 2026, 6:15 PM EST<\/time><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Conservatives&rsquo; crusade against reproductive freedom is deathly serious. Two controversies over the past week highlight some of the violence undergirding the MAGA movement&rsquo;s assault on the idea of people choosing when and whether to bear children.<\/p>\n<p>In Tennessee, two GOP state lawmakers are gauging interest in legislation that would make people eligible for homicide charges &mdash; and potentially the death penalty &mdash; for receiving or assisting with an abortion.<\/p>\n<p>The bill&rsquo;s co-sponsor in the state Senate said he doesn&rsquo;t think the bill currently<em> <\/em>has the votes but ultimately could. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsmv.com\/2026\/02\/23\/amendment-tn-bill-would-allow-death-penalty-abortion-senate-sponsor-says-it-lacks-support\/\">Per the WSMV television station in Nashville<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>&ldquo;We want to be very open and have a conversation, whether it&rsquo;s controversial or not &mdash; let&rsquo;s hear from all sides to see where we are as Tennessee and where we stand,&rdquo;[stateSenMark[stateSenMark<\/em>] <em>Pody said. &ldquo;Talking to some colleagues, we don&rsquo;t have the votes to move something like that in the Senate at this moment.&rdquo;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Pody said he does not consider the bill dead on arrival in the Senate, adding he believes there is a possibility for negotiation and that Republicans in the House and Senate could reach an agreement on language that could pass both chambers.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Most Americans <a href=\"https:\/\/msmagazine.com\/2025\/10\/03\/abortion-law-ban-police-criminal-jail-arrest\/\">seem to think we <em>shouldn&rsquo;t<\/em><\/a>  kick the tires on state-sponsored executions for abortion recipients. Pody apparently disagrees.<\/p>\n<p>His fellow co-sponsor in the House, state Rep. Jody Barrett, didn&rsquo;t sound any more sane <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newschannel5.com\/news\/tennessee-bill-could-make-women-eligible-for-murder-charges-or-the-death-penalty-in-abortion-cases\">in his exchanges<\/a> about the bill with reporter Chris Davis from WTVF, the CBS affiliate in Nashville.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&ldquo;Murder should be murder, whether it&rsquo;s a person in being or a person in utero,&rdquo; Barrett said.<\/p>\n<p>I asked Barrett directly about the criticism that the bill unfairly targets mothers.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s a talking point saying that you&rsquo;re targeting mothers. We&rsquo;re not targeting mothers. We&rsquo;re targeting unborn children and trying to protect them and give them the protection under the law for you and me,&rdquo; Barrett said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The tacit admission came later:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>&ldquo;A simple examination of the death penalty in Tennessee would show that that&rsquo;s just not realistic. Now, do I have to admit that the death penalty is a possibility? Sure. But since the death penalty was reinstated in Tennessee in 1977, there&rsquo;s been less than 200 people sentenced to death, and only 16 have actually been executed &mdash; none of them women,&rdquo; Barrett said.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>It&rsquo;s safe to say the latter remarks are probably not going to be enough to soothe concerns about this morbid proposal &mdash; one that <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/healthcare\/5217297-republican-state-lawmakers-abortion-homicide-bills\/\">mirrors several others across the country<\/a> in the past year.<\/p>\n<p>In Vermont, a different controversy is unfolding over a right-wing influencer named Hank Poitras, who was elected chairman of a county GOP committee &mdash; and who once delivered an <em>extremely <\/em>graphic diatribe about committing an act of violence on a woman&rsquo;s womb after she got pregnant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Ja&rsquo;han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut&nbsp;Blog.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ms.now\/opinion\/abortion-death-penalty-homicide-tennessee-vermont-hank-poitras\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feb. 25, 2026, 6:15 PM EST Conservatives&rsquo; crusade against reproductive freedom is deathly serious. Two controversies over the past week highlight some of the violence undergirding the MAGA movement&rsquo;s assault on the idea of people choosing when and whether to bear children. In Tennessee, two GOP state lawmakers are gauging interest in legislation that would [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}