GOP Anti-Abortion (Expert) Witness: DC Electricity Comes From Burning Fetuses

[babylonsister]

o.m.g.


Politics
GOP Anti-Abortion Witness: DC Electricity Comes From Burning Fetuses
“The next time you turn on the light, think of the incinerators," Catherine Glenn Foster told Congress while under oath on Wednesday.
Ryan Grenoble
May. 19, 2022, 10:39 PM EDT


At a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday concerning abortion access, an expert witness called by Republicans made a head-scratcher of a claim: Washington, D.C., is literally powered by burning fetuses.

“Bodies [are] thrown in medical waste bins, and in places like Washington, D.C., burned to power the lights of the cities’ homes and streets,” Americans United for Life President Catherine Glenn Foster proclaimed.

“Let that image sink in with you for a moment,” she continued. “The next time you turn on the light, think of the incinerators, think of what we’re doing to ourselves so callously and so numbly.”

Foster, a Georgetown Law graduate who earns more than $190,000 a year as president of the anti-choice group, followed up the claim by accusing people who support women’s right to bodily autonomy of being “devastating to the fabric of American democracy.”

Link to tweet

more...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/republican-dc-electricity-power-fetuses_n_6286983fe4b0933e7362cab0

[leftyladyfrommo]

1. We are doomed. We have to get way out in front of these

people. We can't let them win or we are going to have to move to Mexico.

[vlyons]

2. what kind of person thinks about powering home lighting by incinerating dead fetuses?

what kind of person would plant that thought in the minds of other people?

Never mind. they are rhetorical questions. I am in wonder at such evil.

[Solly Mack]

3. Makes me want to run around the house turning on all the lights.

Then turning them back off so I can do it all again.

She knows she's full of shit but she's serving her purpose. Generating outrage over absolutely nothing.

[Bettie]

4. What the ever loving

fuck is she talking about?

Oh, crazy shit. Lies, because she's being paid to do so.

[KS Toronado]

5. Typical reQublicOns, using fear & anger to generate votes.

[geardaddy]

6. I thought D.C.'s electrical power

Republicans running in those little gerbil wheels.

[ShazzieB]

14. If only.

They'd be a lot more useful that way than they are in Congress.

[geardaddy]

17. Yeah, I guess it's wishful thinking on my part

[geardaddy]

18. Yeah, I guess it's wishful thinking on my part

[SergeStorms]

16. Fueled by....

their cocaine orgies. They could light up the entire eastern seaboard.

[geardaddy]

19. Ha!

[gratuitous]

7. And yet, despite this inflammatory and unhinged nonsense

Catherine Glenn Foster will suffer no consequences, will still be invited to opine on the talk shows (and not just those on Fox), will never ever be confronted with her sworn testimony, lest a media outlet lose precious access to her deathless wisdom, and nobody will pelt her with overripe tomatoes when they see her on the street.

[TeamProg]

8. Holy F*** !! These "people" are INSANE n/t

[LuckyCharms]

9. See those splinters in her teeth?

They are from chewing right through the bottom of the barrel.

That's just how these people operate.

Just when you think they can't go any lower, they go lower. They come up with something even more insane than before.

The thing is, saying that these people are insane is not hyperbole. They actually are insane. Their minds are poisoned. The best and most creative fiction writers in the world could not dream up the shit that these people do.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. This is what has been "normalized"

when the outrageous and unhinged bullshit is permitted to be promoted as "valid and sane" in the public discourse.

From Salon - https://www.salon.com/2022/05/19/fetus-powered-street-lamps-ramp-up-outrageous-anti-abortion-lies-ahead-of-roes-demise/

"In places like Washington D.C.," fetuses are "burned to power the light's of the city's homes and streets," claimed Catherine Glenn Foster, who had, just minutes before, sworn not to lie under oath. The GOP-summoned witness let loose the wild and utterly false accusation that municipal electrical companies are powered by incinerated fetuses.

Time to start charging them for perjury.

[NoMoreRepugs]

11. Seriously, how in the world does ANYONE EVER see any hope of reconciling with Republicans??

I'm sorry but IMO we are doomed going forward - there are just too many incredibly stupid people in this country.

[Red Pest]

12. Did anyone on the committee ask Catherine Glenn Foster to prove her statement?

She would have been forced to either lie or retract her statement. One must always challenge this sort of nonsense by asking for proof.

[ShazzieB]

15. Good question.

Somebody should have been like

[Takket]

25. no, but i found Representative Madeleine Dean hammering her bullshit logic.........

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5015702/pro-life-advocate-abortion-challenged-deny-choose

[Quanto Magnus]

13. Wouldn't this be considered

lying to Congress?

The woman is clearly several cards short of a full deck... but this is a straight up lie and wouldn't she have been sworn in?

[nowforever]

20. Ok but

Is it still ok to burn witches if they are pregnant...because I'm worried it will set a bad precedent if we don't. I am hoping we can get a demon fetus clause added to clear it all up.

[CrackityJones75]

21. I cannot accept that our reality isn't fucked up

Something is wrong. The matrix is breaking down. LSD in the water supply. Something very wrong is happening.

[NullTuples]

22. She may not be wrong, just hyperbolic (update: she's wrong, not hyperbolic)

Last edited Sat May 21, 2022, 03:23 PM - Edit history (1)

It's possible that medical waste that has to be incinerated is used to generate power. Should be easy enough to verify. If so, good for D.C. as otherwise it's wasting heat that would otherwise be vented to the environment without doing any good along the way.

"Blue Plains is also the site of the District's only large-scale biomass-fueled generating facility, which has 12 megawatts of capacity and can produce electricity from on-site waste biomass to help reduce the plant's power costs."

Update: Please see my reply to this threadlet, one or two comments down. That facility takes solid waste from sewage treatment plants and fast-ferments it to create methane which is then burned to make steam to spin turbines attached to generators.

[Aussie105]

27. I believe combustible medical waste

like used bandages, protective equipment, single use plastic devices like syringes go to incinerators that may be used to power electricity.

But organic matter like amputated limbs, the odd aborted foetus, cadavers hacked to bits by medical students and potentially infectious materials go into a high temperature gas fired burner.

Someone in the medical waste treatment industry needs to chime in.


But if you want to do the 'shock-horror' thing, she certainly is distorting reality to good effect.

Catherine Glenn Foster, CEO of . . . . stupid things to say?

[NullTuples]

29. It's all irrelevant as that facility doesn't burn waste directly at all (with link)

The Baily Bioenergy facility at Blue Plains takes solid waste from sewage treatment plant(s), puts it in a bioreactor to create burnable gasses like methane (probably mostly methane) and burn THAT to make steam to spin turbines. The remaining solids are used elsewhere.
https://www.dcwater.com/bailey-bioenergy-facility

[Martin68]

23. I'd be interested in seeing a calculation of how many bodies would be needed to power D.C.

[Takket]

26. there is no number

it takes more energy to destroy human tissue than it gives off, so you'll never "make power" off it.

[DBoon]

24. and the Black Death was blamed on Jews poisoning the wells

Which resulted in some very brutal pogroms

[fightforfreedom]

28. That's it. I am going to start looking for large pods.

People are no longer acting like people. It's like the Invasion of the Body Snatchers.