For decades now, the Republican party has talked about social issues to get votes from an economically depressed middle class and used the power of office thus obtained mainly to depress the middle class further. Thomas Frank famously asked, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” in 2005. I hope he won’t write a second book in 2014, “What’s the Matter with Greenwich Village?”

When we pointed out that this is in fact what the bill does, Ezra dismissed it as “helping activists kill the bill” rather than “actually informing anyone about what is in the bill.” According to Ezra, “the restriction here is not on the right to choose, but on whether primary insurance covers abortion.” Therefore, since the goal of the bill is not restricting a woman’s right to choose, the fact that it does so anyway is just a coincidence and therefore not a valid reason to object to the bill’s passage.