It’s a child, not a choice, abortion opponents tell us. Unless the pregnancy is embarrassing and super-inconvenient and an impediment to your political future, in which case it’s merely a clump of cells. All life should be cherished and protected, as Mr. DesJarlais’s website insists, unless it’s your girlfriend who’s unexpectedly expecting, in which case you’ve got to cherish and protect your political future instead. Life begins at conception, as Mr. Rees-Mogg said in a debate, unless that life begins inside of a poor brown-skinned woman half a world away, and there’s money to be made from helping her to end it.

It’s almost as if these men don’t really believe that every time sperm and egg combine, the result is a child worthy of being cherished and protected. It’s almost as if these men are fighting to make abortion a crime because they’re more invested in curtailing women’s options and controlling their bodies than they are with saving innocent lives.