Anna Quindlen thinks this clip is Teh Awesome because it shows how squeamish even anti-abortion activists are about locking women up for their “crime.” My hunch is that the guy who shot it went out looking for wingnuts breathing fire about sending aborters to the electric chair, was disappointed when he didn’t get what he want, and cobbled this together as salvage. What the clip actually does, as E.M. notes, is put the lie to the nutroots canard that the pro-life movement is all about controlling women. If that were true, the penalty phase would be the most well thought out part of the plan. Instead it’s the least, which suggests two things: that their goal is what they say it is, i.e. stopping the behavior itself (albeit without much sense as to how they’ll do that), and that they do indeed compassion for women for whom this decision is obviously very hard (“just pray for them”).

But then what do I know? I’m part of the Patriarchy. Click the image to watch.