An Influential Anti-Abortion Advocate Testified Before Congress That She Thinks Abortions Power Street Lamps in Washington DC

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing this week to address restrictions on abortion access in the U.S. in the face of the leaked Supreme Court decision draft revealing plans to overturn Roe v. Wade. The hearing, titled “Revoking Your Rights: The Ongoing Crisis in Abortion Care Access,” took a strange turn when one of the “expert” witnesses put forth a theory—presented as fact—that the lights in Washington D.C. and other major cities are powered by aborted fetuses. Really.

Here’s what that witness, Catherine Glenn Foster, actually said, describing what she (totally falsely) calls the “violence” of abortion:

Human bodies, from their earliest days, poisoned in the womb and dismembered, torn limb from limb. Bodies thrown in medical wastebins, and in places like Washington D.C., burned to power the lights of the city’s homes and streets. Let that image sink in with you for a moment. The next time you turn on the light, think of the incinerators.

The bizarre conspiracy theory—which was repeated multiple times during the hearing—seems to stem from the recent equally bizarre case involving the theft of multiple fetuses from an abortion clinic, perpetrated by the members of an anti-abortion group who claimed without substantiation that the fetuses were being transported by an energy company.

The person now spewing this story to Congress is not some random kook. Foster is the President and CEO of Americans United for Life, an enormously influential group that has been writing anti-abortion legislation for decades. They’re the reason why “fetal heartbeat” (a deliberately misleading and emotionally manipulative misnomer) bills were suddenly everywhere a few years ago. The Washington Post called AUL “the most significant antiabortion group you’ve never heard of.”

The Post also describes AUL’s strategy as being “slow-but-steady” and deliberately designed to not make headlines or incite backlash. So for the group’s president to go before Congress and publicly push wild, inflammatory conspiracy theories—to literally say reproductive rights activists are using abortions to power street lamps!—sure seems like a departure.

Maybe when you hear the Supreme Court is about to hand you a giant win in the form of overturning nearly 50 years of precedent, you get to finally say all the fanatically unhinged stuff you’ve had to hold in until now.

(image: screencap)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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