https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vEpKkwOf_I
In case you’re thinking about sitting out your next local election, allow me to share a story about just how refreshingly informed one of our current state lawmakers is. Just kidding, I’m not going to leave you in suspense: They’re not. At all. At least one man in charge of making laws that control women’s health has absolutely no idea how women’s bodies work.
Idaho state representative Vito Barbieri, a Republican, was debating an anti-abortion bill and engaging in a round of questions with a physician, Dr. Julie Madsen. The bill was to outlaw medical prescriptions via telemedicine, which is the practice of doctors prescribing medications remotely. The intent of the bill is to force physicians to be present for any abortion procedure, including the prescription of an abortion-inducing medication. This makes it harder for women who don’t have easy access to a clinic offering such services to seek them out.
One example of telemedicine is a new way to perform colonoscopies. A patient swallows a pill containing a camera that captures images of the entire intestinal tract, then those images are uploaded to a physician who could be anywhere. Dr. — I mean, Rep. Barbieri mentioned this in his line of questioning with Dr. Madsen. You can probably tell where this is going:
“Can this same procedure be done in a pregnancy — swallowing a camera and helping the doctor determine what the situation is with the child?” Barbieri asked.
“It cannot be done in pregnancy simply because, when you swallow a pill, it would not end up in the vagina,” [Dr. Madsen] answered prompting loud laughter from within the chamber.
“Fascinating,” Barbieri said. “That certainly makes sense, doctor.”
The audio from this part of the debate is in the video above, in case you think I’m kidding. But I wouldn’t lie. Vito Barbieri, a man responsible for making laws that dictate what choices women can and cannot make about their health, thinks that babies grow in stomachs. The same way young children do because their parents can’t figure out how to explain sex to them, and it’s too soon to accidentally leave porn around the house because there are just so many loaded questions.
I think someone missed a very special episode of Schoolhouse Rock.
In case you need this story to get worse, the bill ended up being approved for a vote in the state’s House of Representatives, which is also run by Republicans. And Barbieri, as far as I can tell, still sits on the board of a “crisis pregnancy center” and advocates for home-schooling. Because who needs school when guys like Vito Barbieri already know everything there is to know about stuff like human anatomy?
Seriously. Vote in local elections.