MSNBC's Reid: Mississippi Argued Women Are Vessels 'Whose Only Purpose Is to Give Birth'

MSNBC’s Joy Reid said Wednesday on her show “The ReidOut” that the lawyers defending the Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy were making the argument “that a woman is essentially a vessel whose only purpose is to give birth.”

Reid said, “Mississippi’s defense of their 15-week abortion law makes a case that’s truly bizarre, arguing that things are different than they were back in the ’70s. That ‘Today, adoption is acceptable, and on a wide scale women attain both professional success and a rich family life.’ So why can’t we just force poor women and rape victims bring fetuses to term? Can they not just leave the babies at the doorstep of a firehouse and get back to the office?”

She continued, “Justice Amy Coney Barrett took that banana and ran with it during her questioning, noting that safe haven laws that allow parents in crisis to give their infants away might take away that burden of pregnancy and parenthood.”

She added, “Mississippi being the state that is making this argument, is full of irony … It is 50th in health care in its rankings, 49th in its economy. Its poorest state in this entire country. One in five women there are uninsured. To say it is okay to ban abortions in the poorest state with one in five women, I believe.. are not insured, to say it is fine, make them carry the baby to term, they can leave it at the firehouse when they are done, it is so dismissive of everything pregnancy is about that t was shocking to me.”

Reid concluded, “They are making the argument that a woman is essentially a vessel whose only purpose is to give birth. And that a woman has no other value or separate rights. Her job is to carry this, this being, that is it. That’s what you are supposed to do.”

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