Donald Trump’s plan to “protect” women in action: Two dead, another arrested for abortion

Donald Trump’s favorite word when talking about banning abortion is “beautiful.” When asked in June on Fox News about the states that passed abortion bans after his Supreme Court nominee overturned Roe v. Wade, Trump declared that “it’s a beautiful thing to see.” He claims to be women’s “protector” and recently told women that they “will no longer think about abortion” if he is elected because women’s “lives will be happy, beautiful.”

We were reminded again this week of what Trump’s “protection” of women looks like in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the 2022 Supreme Court decision that ended nearly half a century of abortion rights that were only possible because Trump did good . on his 2016 promise to appoint justices who opposed Roe v. Wade. On Wednesday, ProPublica reported on the deaths of two Texas women who were denied abortion care at the hospital because that standard of care for failed pregnancies is prohibited under Texas’ draconian abortion law. The Washington Post also reported this week on a Nevada woman was charged with manslaughter after mourning a miscarriage on Facebook.

While one of the two deceased women in Texas remains unknown, the family of Josseli Barnica spoke with ProPublica. The 28-year-old mother was pregnant with her second child when she miscarried at 17 weeks. Unable to remove the dying fetus due to Texas law, doctors stood by helplessly as Barnica sickened with infection over days and eventually died. The case sounds a lot like two from Georgia, where 28-year-old Amber Thurman and 41-year-old Candi Miller died without being able to get post-abortion treatment because of the state’s ban. In Nevada, 26-year-old Patience Frazier was arrested after aborting a fetus she named “Abel.” Authorities claimed she had deliberately terminated her pregnancy, but medical experts say her method – eating a lot of cinnamon – cannot induce a miscarriage.

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Despite being the person most responsible for the deaths of Barnica, Miller and Thurman, Trump continues to call himself a “protector” of women, telling an audience in Wisconsin on Wednesday that he will “protect” women “whether the women like it or not.” For normal people, it is confusing to use the attitude and language of a violent threat when they claim to “protect” women. But with Trump, it makes sick sense, beyond even his history as a serial sex offender. In MAGA parlance, “protecting” is a dog whistle for their true intentions for women: dominance.

The word reflects a larger tendency of Trump and his supporters to view women not as people but as the property of men, especially powerful white men. As journalist Kelly Weill recently arguedin the MAGA worldview, the family is considered “a sexualized project of male dominance.” In this view, women must be “protected” from outsiders who would rape them, but only because it is a property crime against their male owner. But a father or husband has free rein to dispose of his female property as he pleases. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson articulated this repeatedly by arguing that sexual abuse of minors is not serious if the father has first married them off to the rapist.

“I’m just telling you that arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old and a 27-year-old is not the same as pulling a stranger off the street and raping her. That’s b—t,” Carlson said… The criminal charges, which Carlson called “b—t,” stemmed from the case of a 14-year-old girl who (Warren) Jeffs had forced to marry an adult cousin . The girl testified that her husband often raped her and that she survived several miscarriages.

MAGA does not care about women and girls who die because of abortion bans. Those who die from illegal abortions are seen as rejecting patriarchal authority and deserving of that death. But even in the case of those who miscarry and are denied medical care, there is little concern. It makes sense if you see women less as people and more as property. A woman who miscarries and needs medical attention is, in this worldview, much like a faulty appliance. It’s just as well to throw it out and get another one that doesn’t need as much maintenance.

In these four cases, the women also fall out of the narrow zone of “protection” Trump envisions because of their racial identity or class status. Miller and Thurman were black, and Barnica was an immigrant from Honduras. Frazier, as the Washington Post documented, was poor and often homeless. The deputy who arrested her had known her from across town and compared Frazier to “her own mother, who she said often left her five children to fend for themselves in a drug-ridden neighborhood.”

But even middle-class white women should know that they are not safe. A number of such women — such as Amanda Zurawski and Kate Cox of Texas — have spoken of their own horrifying experiences of being denied care for failed pregnancies, leaving Zurawski so scarred that she will likely never give birth. Better-off white women are certainly valued more in MAGA’s worldview, but they are still objects judged by how well they serve the patriarchal system. By failing to be “good” for pregnancy, they are perceived as malfunctioning and uncared for. By speaking out, they have turned into rebellious women who are condemned for their boldness. Anti-abortion leaders relentlessly demonize these women, calling them liars or worse.

Trump continues to deny that he wants a national abortion ban, but the safe bet is that if he wins in November, there will be a national abortion ban. First of all, Trump constantly lies about everything, so his denials on this front are worthless – more important is his unwillingness to commit to vetoing any abortion ban that a Republican Congress would pass. But even if Republicans don’t control Congress, Project 2025 outlines a plan to ban abortion pills through the back door by revoking their FDA approval. Even if Trump wins, he will lose the majority of women voters, likely by a wide margin. He is a vicious misogynist and banning abortion nationwide will simply feel like his “revenge” on women who rejected his “protection”.