See all our coverage of HR 1797 here.

Memo to the GOP: Putting a woman in charge of the vote count on a bill that puts women at risk and obliterates their rights to bodily autonomy doesn’t make the bill any more palatable.

The GOP is in a tizzy about its dismal ratings among women, people of color, and young people—otherwise known as the majority of the electorate. But rather than examining why the policies themselves are so deeply problematic and disliked, the party instead tries to paint over them by selecting radicals who “look like” the people whose rights they are determined to gut.

This is exactly what happened last week, when in response to criticism of its dangerous 20-week abortion ban, which passed out of committee by a vote of 20 to 12 (that being 20 male legislators and no female legislators voting in favor), the GOP rushed to place Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) in charge of the upcoming floor vote. Blackburn is deeply anti-choice and has used the Kermit Gosnell controversy to argue for defunding Planned Parenthood, although one has nothing to do with the other except that defunding Planned Parenthood would create more business for unscrupulous practitioners.

But putting a woman in charge of a bill based on lies, which will deprive women of their most fundamental rights to bodily autonomy and endanger women’s lives, and which is opposed not only by women themselves but also by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists as well as the American Public Health Association and countless practicing physicians does not make that bill any better.

As the saying goes, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. You can put a female member of a misogynistic party in charge of pushing your agenda, but it’s still misogyny.