“We are multi-taskers here in the General Assembly. I am absolutely an advocate for jobs, but we can do lots of the things. And actually, when we can have a few more little taxpayers born, why not?”

North Carolina Republican state Rep. Pat McElraft explains why she filed an extreme anti-choice bill yesterday despite the fact that her party’s leadership has said they want to focus on jobs and the economy. The bill would triple the state’s waiting period from 24 to 72 hours, require only OB-GYNs to provide abortions, and prohibit faculty at the East Carolina University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill medical schools from performing or supervising an abortion.

As a Planned Parenthood spokesperson explains, that means it would “prohibit two of the finest medical schools in the the country from providing doctors with the training necessary to provide safe abortion care.” McElraft claims her bill is intended to ensure that women receive “competent” care, so you’d think she might have considered whether making it harder to learn how to do the procedure is really the best way to achieve that goal. But when pressed on that, she didn’t seem concerned. “There are opportunities for doctors to learn this,” she said. “Abortion physicians learn from all kinds of training – spontaneous abortions or miscarriages. Sometimes, you learn how to act in an emergency situation. There are other options.”

Between this and Arizona’s new law that requires doctors to lie to their patients about a completely untested procedure to supposedly “reverse” a medication abortion, the anti-choice movement’s feigned concerned for “patient safety” is getting harder and harder to take seriously. And, as I wrote at Pacific Standard today, it’s long past time the media stopped indulging it. It’s crystal clear this is just about the fetuses — or rather, the “little taxpayers.”

(h/t @KellyBaden)