Republican Lawmaker Says Abortion Should Be Hanging Offense

It's been noted that the modern-day Republican Party, if given free reign, would create a society which would make the prophetic futures of George Orwell and Margaret Atwood seem benign.  While occasional bouts of extremist posturing can be written off as the delusions of overwrought individuals, a pattern of paranoia has emerged that cannot be ignored:  Shoot undocumented workers, bring back segregation, encourage anti-gay bullying in schools.  (Republican leaders in Texas, not satisfied with simply recriminalizing intimacy between same-sex couples, want felony charges brought against any person - including LGBT-friendly pastors - who officiates at a non-heterosexual wedding.)  These calls for violence and oppression will eventually coalesce into a Religious Right police state. 

Case in point.  Below is the latest howl of insanity from an elected official in the Tar Heel State ...

A lawmaker in North Carolina says doctors who perform legal abortions should be executed.  Not only that, he would like to see them hanged by the neck in public.  Larry Pittman, a conservative representative from Cabarrus County, recently sent emails to every member of the state's General Assembly declaring that he supports capital punishment carried out in town squares.  ("Get yer hot dawgs here!" "Candied apples for the kids!")  From WRAL:  A Cabarrus County lawmaker wants to bring back public hangings in North Carolina as a deterrent to crime, and he says doctors who perform abortions should be in the line to the gallows.  Pittman wrote in the email,  "If murderers (and I would include abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers, as well) are actually executed, it will at least have the deterrent effect upon them. For my money, we should go back to public hangings, which would be more of a deterrent to others, as well."  He confirmed to WRAL News on Thursday that he wrote the email ...  (On the official webpage for the North Carolina Legislature, Pittman lists his current occupations as "pastor, shipping worker, and company chapman.") 

Although the "pro-life" pols waging war against the female womb promise they'll only target physicians who terminate pregnancies (often because an expectant mother's health is threatened), at the very moment abortion becomes illegal and "personhood" is granted to fetuses, these same lawmakers will turn their self-righteous wrath on pregnant women.  We're already seeing examples of this.  (Pictured: Pittman)