Bias Watch

GOP witness claims fetuses are burned to power street lights in Baltimore

GOP witness claims fetuses are burned to power street lights in Baltimore
Cobblestone street along the waterfront in Fells Point at night, Baltimore, Maryland Photo: Shutterstock

Catherine Glenn Foster testified during a Congressional hearing on abortion access, and the anti-choice activist let loose with a whopper that would make every bombastic Republican proud.

Foster claimed that aborted fetuses were powering Baltimore street lights. To be clear, they are not.

“In places like Washington D.C.,” fetuses are “burned to power the lights of the city’s homes and streets,” she accused. “The next time you turn on the light, think of the incinerators.”

Foster, the president of the far-right organization American United for Life, was repeating a quickly debunked conspiracy theory perpetrated by one of the activists accused of hiding five fetuses inside her home in Washington, D.C.

The remains were discovered when nine activists were indicted for storming into a D.C. medical facility in an attempt to shut it down. They were charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act and face up to a maximum of 11 years in prison and a fine of up to $350,000.

Pundit Amanda Marcotte tied the outrageous statements swallowed as fact by the GOP together with their attacks on LGBTQ+ people.

“As their actual political views become harder to defend on the merits, Republicans increasingly embrace conspiracy theories and urban legends to justify the unjustifiable,” she wrote.

“Want to ban schoolchildren from reading about Martin Luther King Jr.? Just falsely claim that something called “critical race theory” is being taught to school kids and use that as cover. Want to deny trans kids the right to be treated with dignity in public schools? Roll out some wild story about how kids are now ‘identifying’ as cats and using litter boxes in school.”

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