Her comments occurred as the panel reviewed the case of an Ohio girl, age 10, who traveled over state lines to seek an abortion after being raped. With no exceptions for rape or incest, Ohio is one of the many states with trigger laws that became effective after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
According to The Wrap, legislators are currently attempting to determine how to proceed with the case and who, if anyone, should be held accountable. The “View” hosts brought up anti-abortion activist Catherine Glenn Foster’s strange statement that “if a 10-year-old became pregnant as a result of rape, and it was threatening her life, then that’s not an abortion” during the discussion. The table’s collective jaws appeared to drop at that point.
“Is the whole anti-abortion movement just making stuff up as they go along?” Whoopi said. “I mean, do they actually have no grasp on basics? Are there no women involved in any of this? I mean, I don’t understand. I don’t understand how this goes.”
Host Ana Navarro quickly jumped in to point out that Foster is a woman “and she was grossly misinformed and saying things that were inaccurate.” She agreed with Goldberg that the overwhelming number of men who have contributed to anti-abortion legislation is troubling.
“I think it’s scary to see how many men who have been mostly involved in crafting these laws have no idea about a woman’s reproductive system, about a little girl’s reproductive system,” she said. “And the fact that a 10-year-old can have her period can get pregnant, and that these things will happen. I think that what we’re seeing is the intended and unintended consequences of this ruling.”
The openly anti-abortion host Sunny Hostin reaffirmed her belief in no exceptions as the conversation went on, but she also recognized that she shouldn’t and couldn’t impose her religious convictions, which have led her to that stance, on others.
Meanwhile, guest host Alyssa Farah Griffin – who is also anti-abortion – noted that Catherine Glenn Foster is “the worst spokesperson for our beliefs in our movement.” Farah Griffin pointed out that “it has been Republican Party orthodoxy for decades that we believe in exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.”
When it was all said and done, Goldberg repeated her irritation at people’s ignorance of the basics of women’s and childbearing people’s physiology.
“I’d also like some of these people to learn anatomy,” she said. “I’d like them to know how a woman’s body works. How young women’s bodies work, what a period is, and what it means. See, because these are – ask a friend for goodness sake! You know women, ask another woman: ‘How does your body work?’ Because I cannot fathom the stupidity that I have seen here. I am shocked by it.”
You can watch the full segment from “The View” in the video above.