No, Stacey Abrams Didn’t Say Abortion Can ‘Solve Inflation’

Abrams said that abortion is an economic issue, which is true. And Republicans deliberately misinterpreted her remarks to gin up outrage.

By Susan Rinkunas  |  October 20, 2022 | 3:55pm
AbortionPolitics
No, Stacey Abrams Didn’t Say Abortion Can ‘Solve Inflation’
Screenshot:YouTube/MSNBC (Fair Use)

Stacey Abrams, Georgia’s Democratic nominee for governor, made an argument during a TV appearance that Jezebel has been underscoring for weeks: While midterm voters’ top concern may be the economy, abortion is very much an economic issue. Predictably, Republicans lost their minds—just like they did when she said, correctly, that six-week embryos don’t actually have heartbeats.

Abrams appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday and contributor Mike Barnicle asked her to explain what a governor can do about high prices for everyday expenses like gas and groceries, given that abortion is probably secondary to people’s concerns about inflation and the economy.

Abrams correctly said these issues are linked, especially when a pregnancy is forced by the state under an abortion ban. She responded:

“Let’s be clear: having children is why you’re worried about your price for gas. It’s why you’re concerned about how much food costs. For women, this is not a reductive issue. You can’t divorce being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy from the economic realities of having a child. And so these are…it’s important for us to have both and conversations. We don’t have the luxury of reducing it or separating them out.
But we also have to talk about what a governor can do. A governor can address housing prices, a governor can address the cost of education, a governor can put money into the pockets of everyday, hardworking Georgians instead of giving tax cuts to the wealthy. That’s what I talk about on the trail and that’s what’s resonating.
But let’s not pretend that women—half the population—especially those of childbearing age, they understand that having a child is absolutely an economic issue. It is only politicians who see it as simply another cultural conversation. It is a real biological and economic imperative conversation that women need to have.”

She’s saying that, for people who can get pregnant and their families, abortion restrictions can’t be separated from the economy. Makes a lot of sense!

But the RNC Research Twitter account, run by the Republican National Committee, said she suggested that “unrestricted abortion-on-demand” can help with inflation, when that is not at all what she said.

Republicans piled on, acting like she just wrote the sequel to A Modest Proposal, the 18th century satire about killing and eating the children of the Irish poor to solve a financial crisis. There are stories spreading this lie in The Daily Caller, The National Review, The Washington Examiner, The New York Post, and of course, Fox News.

Tweets like these from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) are definitely a dog whistle to QAnon devotees, who believe that Democrats are part of an elite cabal of child-murderers.

Her opponent, Gov. Brian Kemp (R), lied in a tweet saying Abrams “wants abortion without limits to fix Joe Biden’s 40-year high inflation.” Reminder that Kemp not only signed the state’s six-week abortion ban into law, but he was also caught on leaked audio saying that he supports banning the destruction of embryos created for IVF.

Georgia’s Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker, and man with a history of lying about abortion, took the RNC lie a step further by claiming Abrams said abortion “is the answer to inflation,” before roping in his opponent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D).

Fox News’ Peter Doocy continued the false narrative during the White House press briefing by asking: “Stacey Abrams is suggesting that one way to mitigate the effects of inflation is to get an abortion. Does President Biden agree?”

This deception isn’t surprising in general, but especially not coming the day after news of record turnout on the first day of early voting in Georgia. It’s all just another indication that the GOP is absolutely terrified of the public backlash to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and will say almost anything to try to change the subject and paint the other side as extreme.

 
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