I have a mostly hate/partly tolerate relationship with NextDoor. It’s useful for when there is a widespread power outage, but mostly it’s spam and scammers, with an occasional wingnut political post (I live in West Virginia so it comes with the territory). The other day I saw this post:

Hello fellow mountaineers! I am one of you normal folks and I am running for office to try and stop the federal government from taking more of our money and freedom and liberty. We have 6 kids and I work 3 jobs just to pay all the bills.

Was I intrigued? Hell yeah. So I went to his website.

He’s Bryan McKinney, and he’s running in the WV GOP primary for senator. The first plank of his platform is his opposition to abortion. Not the abolition of taxes, which his website is named after, not the usual GOP fearmongering about scary brown people at the border, not MUH GUNZ, not term limits (another of his hobby horses), not even dealing with China. All of them make an appearance in the list, but abortion is his most important issue.

Let’s unpack this barrage of bullshit.

I am pro-life. I have 6 children and assisted at each of their births.

No, dude, no. No one wants to hear about that stuff.

 All human life is sacred, and pre-born babies have as much a right to life as people who are already born.

WTF does “pre-born babies” mean? Is it like parboiled potatoes?

I’m a strong supporter of adoption.

He is also a male, and has never been pregnant, and has never menstruated, and has never had to consider the health and financial repercussions of being pregnant and carrying the pregnancy through to the end. He supports a specific fantasy of adoption.

I have well over 1,000 hours volunteering as a sidewalk counselor for women in crisis pregnancies.

Translation:  “I have 1,000 hours of screaming at women who are in crisis.”

If you, or anyone you know is ever in a crisis pregnancy situation, please reach out to me. I know people who will help. If not, my wife and I would be more than willing to take care of any child who is at risk of being aborted until we can find your baby a forever home.

A “child” who is “at risk of being aborted” is still inside the woman. This sounds like…kidnapping. And finding “a forever home” is the language of animal shelters.

We know many loving people looking for children to adopt.

Why does this sound like child trafficking?

And more importantly, what does any of this have to do with being a US Senator? All of this is centered on him and his experiences. Actual pregnant women exist only to be kidnapped and kept until they give birth or as interchangeable sources of coveted infants to place into some kind of shadowy adoption circle. Because, you know, adoptions are regulated by the government, dude.

When you wonder how male Republican politicians can say the things they do about abortion it all makes a lot more sense when you understand that women are only an abstract entity to these men.

Look at how McKinney talks about women—he talks about his 6 children’s births and takes credit for helping to deliver them, but never mentions his wife. He brags about harassing and lying to pregnant women in crisis, but he never tells us any stories about women he has helped. And that phrase that sets my teeth on edge every time:  “pre-born”, as if a fetus is just hanging out in a fridge before it’s plucked out to be born.

When you depersonalize people, you don’t have to acknowledge their rights or their humanity. Republican politicians don’t see women as unique individuals. They just see harlots or baby incubators.

They’re going to get a wake up call in November. And along those lines: