Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez News: How AOC Responded To The Recent Abortion Bans

In what has become her signature style, and in light of Alabama’s attack on women’s reproductive choice, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) took to the Twittersphere this week, joined by many others, to express outrage over the so-called heartbeat movement that crystallized in the passage of the most restrictive abortion law in the nation.

In the first of many salvos, Ocasio-Cortez argued, “Abortion bans aren’t just about controlling women’s bodies. They’re about controlling women’s sexuality. Owning women. From limiting birth control to banning comprehensive sex ed, U.S. religious fundamentalists are working hard to outlaw sex that falls outside their theology.”

The 29-year-old freshman congresswoman was joined by longtime activist and actress Barbara Streisand, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, Democrats running for president, and hundreds of others from across the nation expressing anger, anguish, and disbelief toward the law that outlaws abortion, and will impose stiffer penalties on doctors who perform abortion for a rape victim than a rapist convicted of the crime.

The Alabama state senate passed the nation’s most restrictive abortion law last Tuesday by a 25-6 margin. Every yes vote was a cast by a white male, while the six no votes came from women, all Democrats.

Ocasio-Cortez continued her attack on the Alabama law, calling it “a brutal form of oppression” against the one right every person should have: command of their body. She continued by pointing out the apparent hypocrisy of claiming a sanctity for all life and then denying the potential lethal impacts of climate change, absence of universal health care, and the “caging” of children at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Ironically, the Alabama abortion law was introduced by a woman legislator, and signed into law by a female governor, both of them white. Some have argued the law particularly targets poor women of color.