Josh Hawley, Sweetie, If He Wanted to, He Would 

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that there’s nothing as humiliating as the anguished longing to catch your crush’s attention. Maybe you put something out into the universe, like an Instagram, a TikTok, or a bogus far-right “study,” praying it’ll catch their eye, and they’ll reach out. Maybe you ran into them in person and walked away feeling confident that you were charming and that your pleas to further roll back reproductive rights were irresistible—how could they not call you? Or maybe in a weak moment of desperation, you posted a public letter on social media begging them to notice you, like some kind of TikTok Annie Wilkes.

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)—an anti-abortion slenderman whose wife is a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom and argued against the abortion pill mifepristone in front of the Supreme Court—has sadly fallen victim to all of the above. Not only has Hawley spent the last six months trying to get FDA Commissioner Marty Makary to pay attention to him in his effort to ban the abortion pill, but now he’s written his second public, pleading letter—complete with three “yes or no” questions at the end, like a lovesick first grader wanting to know if the cutie who sits at the back of the class likes them. Josh, sweetie, we’ve all been there. And if he wanted to—he would.

“Six months ago, you told me you were ‘committed to conducting a review of mifepristone,’ the chemical abortion drug. You repeated this commitment to state attorneys general and other members of Congress,” Hawley wrote in his latest letter that he, again, posted to *gulps* Twitter, for everyone to see. “Yet according to news reports yesterday, you have ordered this promised safety review delayed until after the midterms. Indeed, it is unclear whether you are conducting an independent safety review at all.” He continued: “This is unacceptable.” I am in no way on Makary’s side here, but I, too, have struggled to get away from men at bars who wouldn’t take “fuck off” for an answer after I refused to indulge them in their attempts to play devil’s advocate.

We all know how difficult it is to talk to someone in the throes of a crushing crush, but Hawley, your embarrassing descent into madness trying to get some middle-aged man to pay attention to your silly little study—that wasn’t peer-reviewed, misrepresented statistics to falsely claim the abortion pill is dangerous, and has no basis in reality—won’t make Makary text you, “hey.” Mifepristone is safe; you are safe (if not a giant piece of shit); women are…well, women are not safe under the Trump administration, so never mind—just focus on those first two! But I think it’s time to step away from the letterhead and let this fantasy drift into the ether, where all the other glistening, glittering would-be relationships live—right next to all the crumpled notes asking, “Will you lie about the safety of mifepristone for me? Yes ☐ No ☐.”

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