The entire nation is currently scared, disgusted, and reeling as an opinion draft was leaked and published by Politico yesterday, suggesting that the United States Supreme Court could overturn Roe V. Wade — a landmark decision made in 1973, protecting a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion without undue government interference or restrictions.
Now, a resurfaced 2016 clip of then-candidate Donald Trump is making its rounds across social media like wildfire, reminding us all how we got to a point in this country where women will soon have fewer rights and less bodily autonomy than a corpse.
In the clip of a 2016 MSNBC town hall with Donald Trump, back in his first round of campaign days, the now ex-president openly demands “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions.
Chris Matthews, who was an MSNBC host at the time, pressed then-candidate Trump on his thoughts and opinion regarding abortion in the United States during a town hall ahead of the election in March 2016. Matthews specifically asked the real estate “mogul” if there should be punishments for women who obtain an abortion procedure.
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“The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment,” Trump responded.
“For the woman?” Matthews clarified.
“Yeah, there has to be some form,” the then-candidate doubled down.
Donald Trump also specifically clarified that, under the hypothetical law, the men who got these women pregnant would not stand subject to the punishments women would receive for obtaining an abortion.
Matthews questioned Trump as to what would happen if abortion were outlawed entirely. Donald Trump made it crystal clear that he knew good and well women would take drastic, dangerous measures — he just didn’t care. “You’ll go back to a position like they had, where people will perhaps go to illegal places. Yeah, but you have to ban it,” he responded.
And we wonder why we’re facing down this dystopian hellscape now…
See the clip here:
Remember when Trump said “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who get abortions? pic.twitter.com/9rAoRrpLWJ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 5, 2021
Featured image via Flickr/Gage Skidmore, under Creative Commons license 2.0
