Idaho legislator should be rebuked for comment about Planned Parenthood being ‘nuked’
An Idaho legislator’s questioning why the Boise Planned Parenthood office “hasn’t been nuked off of State Street” should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
“I don’t know why, to quote someone down there, I don’t know why Planned Parenthood hasn’t been nuked off of State Street,” state Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, said Saturday at a Kootenai County Republican Central Committee town hall of legislators from Kootenai County.
Barbieri, who was speaking about abortion, added, “I don’t know why America has not been judged — if you can say that we’re not being judged now — for the ... 42 million babies worldwide murdered this year — or last year. Judgment is coming. That’s not my job. We know whose job that is. We are all working to save babies. One baby. A million babies. We’re all working for that.”
For sure, legislators continue working to fight abortion rights in Idaho:
- House Bill 525 seeks to prohibit the transfer or expenditure of public money to any organization that provides abortion services.
- House Bill 361 declares that abortion shall be illegal in Idaho, and the attorney general shall direct state agencies to enforce this act.
There’s little doubt that legislators like Barbieri and Reps. Heather Scott, Bryan Zollinger and Christy Zito are passionate about the topic. You can certainly hear the passion and anger in Barbieri’s voice as he speaks about it at the town hall.
But nuking Planned Parenthood?
We see very little wiggle room in explaining away that choice of words.
This is dangerous territory bordering on inciting violence that needs to be condemned in the strongest possible way.
The National Abortion Federation points out that abortion clinics and women’s reproductive health care providers have a history of being targets for violence by anti-abortion extremists, including bombings, arsons, chemical attacks, vandalism and even murder.
Threats of violence should have no place in any debate, and the fact that such talk comes from a sitting legislator is alarming.
Barbieri made headlines in 2015 for suggesting a woman could swallow a camera in order for doctors to examine a patient’s uterus. He must also make decisions on other matters not pertaining to abortion, such as his vote last week on the House State Affairs Committee to recommend a bill to prohibit transgender girls and women from participating in girls and women’s sports. Among those testifying against the bill was Mistie Tolman, Idaho state director of Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest and Hawaii.
One can only imagine what Barbieri was thinking as Tolman testified on that legislation. If he questions whether one of her offices should be “nuked off of State Street,” we’re pretty certain he wouldn’t take her testimony seriously on any bill, let alone a bill concerning abortion.
“We are living in a time of heightened partisanship and anti-abortion sentiment from the Trump administration on down to our local statehouses,” Tolman wrote in a statement released Saturday. “The comments Rep. Barbieri made … are deeply concerning and we demand he take responsibility for this harmful language. Planned Parenthood has long been a target of anti-abortion violence, and comments like these only further incite violence.”
It is also worth repeating that Planned Parenthood offers far more services than just abortion, including services to help people plan their pregnancies so that we can prevent abortions in the first place.
Even his fellow Republican legislators who want to do all they can to eliminate abortion in Idaho and the country should be able to agree that suggesting “nuking Planned Parenthood off of State Street” is extreme, dangerous and not conducive to providing real solutions.
We recommend starting with an ethics committee investigation, leading to a vote of reprimand or censure.
According to House rules, an ethics complaint can be brought against a legislator alleging “conduct unbecoming a Representative which is detrimental to the integrity of the House as a legislative body.”
Barbieri’s incendiary and dangerous language constitutes such unbecoming conduct and should be called out and have consequences.
This story was originally published February 24, 2020 at 12:16 PM.