Melissa Joskow / Media Matters
On September 16, The Washington Post published an exclusive interview with Christine Blasey Ford, sharing her previously anonymous account of being assaulted by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when they were both in high school. Even before Ford’s name was public, right-wing media were questioning her motives and accusing her of opportunism -- attacks that only escalated once Ford came forward. And on September 17, two right-wing media figures stooped to a new low: alleging that Democrats are calling for consideration of Ford’s account only because Kavanaugh’s far-right judicial philosophy would threaten abortion access.
The Resurgent’s Erick Erickson claimed that Ford’s report -- and calls for examining it before the Senate votes on Kavanaugh -- are about “the right to kill kids,” and Fox News’ Tucker Carlson said the issue “doesn’t have anything to do with justice,” because “anyone who lives in Washington can tell you it’s about abortion.”
That right-wing media would pivot to attacking abortion access to distract from Ford’s account is as unsurprising as it is repugnant. Right-wing media figures have spent years demonizing abortion providers and patients, as well as fearmongering about the safety of abortion procedures. In many ways, abortion stigma -- the idea that abortion is inherently wrong or socially unacceptable -- functions similarly to the shaming of sexual assault survivors, another common tactic of right-wing media. By making the consequences of sharing one’s experience so vast and uncomfortable, right-wing media and others deter individuals from speaking up in the first place. After all, as Ford summarized in her comments to The Post, “Why suffer through the annihilation” of speaking up “if it’s not going to matter?” -- particularly when it’s so obvious what the right-wing reaction will be.
On September 17, Erickson (who, despite allegedly being done with Twitter, has been an endless fount of bad takes about Kavanaugh) wrote a post claiming that “this entire thing is about the right to kill kids, not about the veracity of the accusation.” He continued, “The left is perfectly willing to destroy a man's reputation in order to keep destroying children,” adding that Democrats would use an “uncorroborated, single sourced, 35 year old claim … to protect the right to kill girls in utero.” The next day, Erickson doubled-down on this position in a second post, bombastically declaring:
The accusation against Brett Kavanaugh is because of abortion. The liberal college professor is being promoted by partisan groups with an expressed desire to advance the abortion agenda. Democrat PR firms are coordinating messaging on this on behalf of the abortion industry. They are convinced Brett Kavanaugh would overturn Roe v. Wade so he must be destroyed.
…
This is all about cracking open the skulls of children, vacuuming out their brains, and tearing them limb from limb before selling them for scrap. This has nothing to do with guilt or innocence. This has nothing to do with due process. This has nothing to do with justice or equality. This has everything to do with killing kids.
Not to be left out of the bad-take arms race, during the September 17 edition of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, host Carlson made a similar argument, claiming that Ford’s report came out only because Kavanaugh would likely be the deciding vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. “Does anyone really believe this story would have surfaced if Brett Kavanaugh had pledged allegiance to Roe v. Wade?” he asked. “Of course it wouldn't have. … Whatever the story is, it's not about protecting women. Don't buy that spin.”
Many conservatives have explicitly set aside their numerous ethical concerns about President Donald Trump because of his promise to appoint anti-choice judges -- a promise some declared that Trump had kept with the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch and with Kavanaugh’s nomination. Yet in calling for due consideration of Ford’s account before confirming someone for a lifetime term to the Supreme Court, “the left” is somehow engaging in political calculations involving abortion access?
In many ways, right-wing media’s reliance on abortion stigma and reflexive disbelief of sexual assault survivors are borne of the same strategic imperative. By isolating and shaming people into pre-emptive silence, right-wing media can control the narrative around abortion and sexual assault -- and continue spreading harmful and inaccurate information about both.