Democrats like to style themselves as the “party of science.” Yet, when it comes to abortion, Democrats are often proud of their scientific illiteracy.
A Pennsylvania Democratic state legislator recently announced that he would introduce a bill forcing men to undergo vasectomies after having their third child or after they turn 40 years old. This legislator, Chris Rabb, thinks this is a clever response to Texas’s heartbeat bill, which he says restricts the reproductive rights of women, transgender men, and “non-binary folx.”
Party of science, indeed.
This isn’t a one-off event. Rabb says he was inspired by another Democratic state legislator, Illinois’s Kelly Cassidy, who introduced a bill that would allow residents to sue anyone who causes an unwanted pregnancy. Back in 2017, a Democratic lawmaker in Texas proposed a bill that would impose a 24-hour waiting period for colonoscopies or vasectomies and would fine men if they masturbate.
These kinds of bills are typically only meant to earn the Democrat involved some supportive left-wing headlines and some retweets on Twitter. But Rabb’s bill, just like the Texas bill before it, is not a clever pro-choice response to pro-life laws. They’re a sign that members of the “party of science” evidently failed high school biology.
Vasectomies are not comparable to abortions in any real way. Sperm cells do not have their own unique DNA. They are gametes, reproductive cells that only carry half of the genetic code needed to create a human. Conception, when the sperm cell joins with a woman’s egg cell, creates a human being with its own unique genetics.
This is basic reproductive biology. You can find it in any biology or relevant medical textbook. If you were someone who simply “followed the science,” you would know this. But Democrats remain entirely unable to address the reality of what abortion is. They have to pretend that when life begins is a “belief” rather than a scientific reality. And that then leads to stunts by politicians such as Rabb, who respond to the strawman version of science that Democrats pretend the abortion debate is really about.
This all stems from the fact that Democrats can’t acknowledge that abortion actually ends a human life. They rely on making the abortion debate about a “clump of cells” or “controlling women’s bodies.” These embarrassing stunts stem from the rejection of basic biology that makes their stance on abortion otherwise untenable. That Rabb takes pride in his scientific illiteracy should be embarrassing both to him and those who proudly brand themselves as the “party of science.”
