Donald Trump's favorite word when talking about abortion bans is “beautiful.” When asked on Fox News in June whether states would enact abortion bans after his Supreme Court nominee Roe v. After toppling Wade, Trump declared: “It's a beautiful thing to watch.” He claims to be the “protector” of women and recently told women that they “will no longer think about abortion” if he is elected because women's lives will be “happy and beautiful”.

We were reminded again this week of Trump's “protection” of women in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health looks like the Supreme Court's 2022 decision that ended nearly half a century of abortion rights, which was only possible because Trump made good on his 2016 promise to appoint justices who would oppose Roe v. Wade said. On Wednesday, ProPublica reported on the deaths of two Texas women who were denied hospital miscarriage care because that standard care for failed pregnancies is banned under Texas' draconian abortion law. The Washington Post also reported this week on a Nevada woman who was charged with manslaughter after mourning a miscarriage on Facebook.

While one of the two deceased women in Texas is still unknown, the family of Josseli Barnica spoke to ProPublica. The 28-year-old mother was pregnant with her second child when she suffered a miscarriage at 17 weeks. Because of Texas law, doctors were unable to remove the dying fetus and stood helpless as Barnica contracted an infection for days and eventually died. The case is strongly reminiscent of two cases from Georgia, where 28-year-old Amber Thurman and 41-year-old Candi Miller died because they were unable to receive post-abortion care because of that state's ban. In Nevada, 26-year-old Patience Frazier was arrested after suffering a miscarriage of a fetus named “Abel.” Authorities claimed she intentionally terminated her pregnancy, but medical experts say her method – eating a bunch of cinnamon – cannot cause a miscarriage.

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Despite being primarily responsible for the deaths of Barnica, Miller and Thurman, Trump continues to call himself a “protector” of women, telling a crowd in Wisconsin on Wednesday that he will “protect” women “whether the women like it or not.” “. It is confusing to ordinary people to use the attitude and language of a violent threat when claiming to “protect” women. But in Trump's case, it makes a strange sense, even beyond his past as a serial killer. In MAGA parlance, “protect” is a reference to their true intentions toward women: dominance.

The word reflects a larger tendency among Trump and his supporters to view women not as people but as the property of men, particularly powerful white men. As journalist Kelly Weill recently argued, in the MAGA worldview the family is seen as “a sexualized project of male dominance.” In this view, women are supposed to be “protected” from outsiders who would rape them, but only because it is a property crime against their male owner. But a father or husband has a free hand to dispose of his female property as he pleases. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson made this point repeatedly, arguing that sexual abuse of minors is not really serious if the father married them to the rapist first.

“I'm just telling you that arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old and a 27-year-old is not the same as picking up a stranger off the street and raping him. This is nonsense,” Carlson said… The criminal charges, which Carlson referred to as “Bt,” stemmed from the case of a 14-year-old girl who forced (Warren) Jeffs into marriage to an adult cousin. The girl said that her husband frequently raped her and that she had survived several miscarriages.

MAGA doesn't care about women and girls who die because of abortion bans. Those who die from illegal abortions are seen as people who reject patriarchal authority and deserve that death. But even in those cases where a miscarriage occurs and medical care is denied, there is no great cause for concern. This makes sense if you look at women less as people and more as property. In this worldview, a woman who suffers a miscarriage and requires medical attention is something like a broken device. It's just as well to throw it away and get another one that doesn't require as much maintenance.

In these four cases, the women also fall outside the narrow “zone of protection” that Trump envisions because of their racial identity or class status. Miller and Thurman were black and Barnica was an immigrant from Honduras. Frazier, as the Washington Post documented, was impoverished and frequently homeless. The officer who arrested her knew her from all over the city and compared Frazier to “her own mother, who she said often left her five children to fend for themselves in a drug-ridden neighborhood.”

But even middle-class white women should know that they are not safe. A number of such women – such as Amanda Zurawski and Kate Cox of Texas – have spoken out about their own horrific experiences when they were denied medical care for failed pregnancies, leaving Zurawski so badly injured that she will likely never give birth. Better-off white women are certainly more valued in the MAGA worldview, but they are still objects judged based on how well they serve the patriarchal system. If they fail to be “good” during pregnancy, they are considered defective and in need of care. By speaking out, they became rebellious women who are judged for their boldness. Anti-abortion leaders relentlessly demonize these women, calling them liars or worse.

Trump continues to deny that he wants a nationwide abortion ban, but the safe bet is that there will be a nationwide abortion ban if he wins in November. First, Trump lies constantly about everything, so his denials on that front are worthless – more important is his unwillingness to veto any abortion ban that a Republican Congress would pass. But even if Republicans don't control Congress, Project 2025 outlines a plan to ban backdoor abortion pills by revoking their FDA approval. Even if Trump wins, he will lose the majority of female voters, probably by a wide margin. He is a vicious misogynist, and a nationwide abortion ban will simply feel like his “revenge” on women who rejected his “protection.”