Appearing before a Florida convention of young people, Rep. Matt Gaetz said Saturday that women demonstrating for access to legal abortions are too unattractive to become pregnant. "Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions?" Gaetz told the group. "Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb." The Republican lawmaker was speaking to about 5,000 young people at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, USA Today reports.
"Calling women unattractive is kind of Gaetz's go-to schtick," Laura Bassett writes for Jezebel. He made a complementary point in a tweet when the US Supreme Court threw out Roe v. Wade, posting, "How many of the women rallying against overturning Roe are over-educated, under-loved millennials who sadly return from protests to a lonely microwave dinner with their cats, and no bumble matches?" Bassett calls Saturday's remarks by Gaetz, who is under federal investigation on suspicion of sex trafficking, "cartoonishly misogynist."
The crowd did not boo the comments, which Gaetz included in his Twitter feed. Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey called Gaetz's speech "brain-dead misogyny" in a tweet, warning that after the midterm elections this fall, the next Congress will include more lawmakers who think that way. Former President Donald Trump also addressed the student audience and referred to Gaetz. "What a wonderful guy," Trump said. (More Matt Gaetz stories.)
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