The Right Admits They Couldn’t Care Less If Herschel Walker Paid for Abortion: ‘Winning Is a Virtue’

File this under bullshit I could see coming from a mile away: Anti-abortion activists are now brazenly admitting that they do not give a damn that that Herschel Walker—the self-admitted serial domestic abuser Republican nominee for Senate in Georgia with a bunch of secret kids—reportedly paid for an abortion and sent his then-girlfriend a Get Well Soon card.

On Tuesday, Dana Loesch, the very “pro-life” former NRA spokeswoman who gleefully cyberbullied adolescent survivors of the Parkland school shooting, addressed the reports about Walker on her podcast, The Dana Show. She argued whether or not the story is true, winning back the Senate is more important than (publicly performing) conservative values. “Winning is a virtue, and I’m not going to be baited, nor should you,” she said, seemingly saying the quiet part—that Republicans care more about power than their stated values—out loud. “What I’m about to say is by no means a contradiction or a compromise of a principle. Please keep in mind I’m concerned about one thing and one thing only at this point. So, I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles—I want control of the Senate.”

Here’s a riddle to unpack: Republicans want to gain control of the Senate so that, among other things, they can pass a national ban on abortion—because, supposedly, abortion is murder, and fetuses are people. And the very same Republicans do not care if they have to campaign for a man who paid for his girlfriend’s abortion in order to impose this disingenuous worldview on a nation that overwhelmingly disagrees with it.

After conceding, puzzlingly, that aborting an engangered baby eagle would be even worse than abortion a human fetus, Loesch continued, for some reason: “If the story is true, you’re telling me Walker used his money to reportedly pay some skank for an abortion, and [Democratic Senate nominee Raphael] Warnock wants to use all of our money to pay a whole bunch of skanks for abortions—and yes, when they’re used predominantly over 99% of birth control and it’s my taxpayer dollars, you have invited me up in your business and I will use whatever descriptor I would like to—it doesn’t change anything for me. I don’t care if he did it or not. I don’t even care.” Conservative slut-shaming about people who have abortions isn’t new, although Loesch’s word choice (and ignorance about existing federal policy around abortion coverage!) is especially vile. It sure seems to me like if anyone is the “skank” here, it’s Walker.

She just really doesn’t care; do u?

Walker denied the story reported by the Daily Beast, stating, “I planning to sue” (lol) the publication for its report, which was backed up by pretty damning evidence. Yet, Politico interviewed high-ranking Republican operatives who all but confirmed that this was something Walker, his team, and pretty much every Republican in Georgia was well aware of for some time. Privately, they said, Walker didn’t even bother denying the story.

As Jezebel’s Susan Rinkunas pointed out on Monday, despite Walker’s aggressive self-promotion as a “pro-life” family man who wants to totally ban abortion, his own abortion story isn’t hypocritical—it speaks to how anti-abortion politicians’ goal is to legislate away everyone’s bodily autonomy but their own. Anti-abortion Republicans have been outed for paying for the abortions of mistresses and others in their lives for years—Walker isn’t even the first Republican Congressional nominee exposed this election cycle. It’s a tale as old as time, and while it will always be shocking, it’s just… not surprising. People having abortions—no matter what their politics—will never be surprising.

And for all their stated love for kids and family values, these people sure seem willing to throw Walker’s son, who accused Walker of abusing and threatening to kill him and his mother, under the bus. It’s not just Loesch, or even former President Trump, loosely rumored to have paid for women’s abortions, himself: Top rabidly anti-abortion groups like Susan B. Anthony’s List and the National Right to Life have also vocally stood by Walker.

SBA List called Walker “pro-life” and doubled down on supporting him. National Right to Life equated the Daily Beast report with supposedly similar “character assassinations” against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, ostensibly because Walker and Thomas are both Black men—but they have something else in common, too: Both are credibly accused of mistreating women! The organization continued, “Herschel Walker wants to protect unborn children while Raphael Warnock wants to see them die through unlimited abortion.” (Side note: Whatever the hell “unlimited abortion” is, sign me up!)

It’s honestly just embarrassing, at this point, and it would all be laughable if the stakes of this election weren’t so high. Contrary to years of pretending that if Roe v. Wade was overturned they’d simply send abortion “back to the states,” Republican Congress members like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have already introduced legislation to ban it on the federal level. If they elect Walker, win majorities in the House and Senate, and take the White House in two years, abortion will almost certainly be criminalized nationwide. Providing or accessing medical care for miscarriages and other emergencies could put you in jail; arthritis medication would be inaccessible for those of “childbearing age.” Yet, it seems safe to assume none of these rules would apply to men like Walker and those under his wing.