**Update: DeSantis's story was so fantastic the Miami Herald researched it and released this piece on the what DeSantis tried to describe. It reads like a testament to why we should have women making the decisions with the advice of their licensed medical practitioner of choice about what happens to their bodies.
Defending his well-known stand against women's rights, Florida Governor and Gilead transformationist Ron DeSantis offered a ridiculous in its stupidity story about an unbelievable medical procedure during the Republican "Presidential primary debate," or whatever that was.
Trying to imagine the fictional set of circumstances that led to "Penny the pan fetus" — a woman DeSantis knows who survived multiple attempts to abort her including being discarded from the hospital "in a pan" is painful. The guy clearly doesn't understand what is going on. DeSantis then went on to lie about abortion further.
In a particularly desperate moment during Wednesday night's Republican presidential primary debate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) answered a question about abortion by spinning up this little tale: "I know a lady in Florida named Penny. She survived multiple abortion attempts. She was left discarded in a pan," he said. "Fortunately, her grandmother saved her and brought her to a different hospital."
DeSantis, who's trailing former President Trump by about 40 points, continued, "We're better than what the Democrats are selling. We are not going to allow abortion all the way up til birth, and we will hold them accountable for their extremism."
So, to be extremely clear: Abortion all the way up to birth isn't a thing. And DeSantis' desperate "abortion survivor" bullshit—an obvious gag for attention at a debate that saw Vivek Ramaswamy talk all over him—draws from the usual Republican nonsense about imagined "late-term" abortions targeting born, living infants. DeSantis and Republicans rely on these baseless talking points because they know abortion rights are popular, and all they can do is obfuscate, confuse, and lie.
IN A PAN.
