Florida Politician Matt Gaetz Doubled Down On Body Shaming Women After A Roe V. Wade Speech
"Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb."
A screenshot of Congressman Matt Gaetz during a speech.
On Saturday, July 23, at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Congressman Matt Gaetz body-shamed pro-abortion protestors and he continued to make those comments online.
"Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb," Gaetz said on stage.
He didn't stop there. He went on to even physically described a body type and made fun of people for marching.
"They're like 5'2", 350 lbs., and they're like 'give me my abortions or I'll get up and march and protest.' And I'm thinking, march? You look like you got ankles weaker than the legal reasoning behind Roe V. Wade," he said. "A few of them need to get up and march. They need to get up and march for like an hour a day, swing those arms, get the blood pumping, maybe mix in a salad."
A clip of the speech posted to Twitter has over six million views and eight thousand comments.
"How does an elected official talk about women like this," one user replied.
The Representative doubled down on what he said. He retweeted the viral clip of him speaking, and even targeted a teenager in one of his replies.
Newsmax wrote online that "Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz blasted abortion activists in a rant sure to raise dander of his political opponents," when the outlet shared their article about his speech.
The politician soon after shared a photo of a young woman and wrote, "dander raised..."
The woman in Gaetz's tweet, Olivia Julianna, didn't back down.
"Am I not a little too old for you Matt? I know you have a thing for targeting teenagers but 19 is on the cusp don’t you think?" She wrote.
This isn't the first time Gaetz has drawn attention on Twitter for the things that he's said about Roe V. Wade. When abortion rights rallies started on May 4, he released the following tweet.
"How many of the women rallying against overturning Roe are over-educated, under-loved millennials who sadly return from protests to a lonely microwave dinner with their cats, and no bumble matches?"
Roe V. Wade was overturned on June 24, 2022.*
This article has been updated.