Coney Barrett Babies
By 
Mississippi forced a rape victim to carry her pregnancy to term. She started seventh grade last autumn:
In the fall of 2022, Ashley was raped by a stranger in the yard outside her home, her mother says. For weeks, she didn’t tell anybody what happened, not even her mom. But Regina knew something was wrong. Ashley used to love going outside to make dances for her TikTok, but suddenly she refused to leave her bedroom. When she turned 13 that November, she wasn’t in the mood to celebrate. “She just said, ‘It hurts,’” Regina remembers. “She was crying in her room. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she didn’t want to tell me.” (To protect the privacy of a juvenile rape survivor, TIME is using pseudonyms to refer to Ashley and Regina; Peanut is the baby’s nickname.)
[…]
Mississippi’s abortion ban contains narrow exceptions, including for rape victims and to save the life of the mother. As Ashley’s case shows, these exceptions are largely theoretical. Even if a victim files a police report, there appears to be no clear process for granting an exception. (The state Attorney General’s office did not return TIME’s repeated requests to clarify the process for granting exceptions; the Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure and the Mississippi State Medical Association did not reply to TIME’s requests for explanation.) And, of course, there are no abortion providers left in the state. In January, the New York Times reported that since Mississippi’s abortion law went into effect, only two exceptions had been made. Even if the process for obtaining one were clear, it wouldn’t have helped Ashley. Regina didn’t know that Mississippi’s abortion ban had an exception for rape.
[…]
There is only one moment when Ashley smiles a little, and it’s when she describes the nurses she met in the doctors’ office and delivery room. One of them, she remembers, was “nice” and “cool.” She has decided that when she grows up, she wants to be a nurse too. “To help people,” she says. For a second, she looks like any other soon-to-be seventh grader sharing her childhood dream. Then Peanut stirs in his car seat. Regina says he needs to be fed. Ashley’s face goes blank again. She is a mother now.
Fast-forward to now:
Gov. Tate Reeves' office says Mississippi won't participate in a federal summer food program for children because of his desire to reject “attempts to expand the welfare state.” https://t.co/pdD0HJZyvv— Mississippi Today (@MSTODAYnews) January 12, 2024
“Mississippi: we support welfare support only for millionaire football players.”
There’s not really a contradiction per se in Mississippi Republicans using state coercion to produce this kind of brutality toward women they don’t want to have access to healthcare and children they want to go hungry. It’s all one seamless web of cruelty — it’s what the “pro-life” movement in the United States just is.