notwithstanding the foregoing
![cancerninja:
theatlantic:
Symbolic Legislation to Nowhere: Why Statehouses Fail in Governance
The fact that Virginia lawmakers evidently didn’t understand what their law would mean to women, and what it would require of doctors, didn’t stop the legislators from pushing forward with the measure anyway. Ignorance of the law may be no legal defense to you and me, but ignorance of the law among those who are passing the law surely is the definition of bad governance. For the politicians now scrambling away from Virginia’s measure, however, pleading ignorance perhaps is easier today than confessing the truth, which is that the pols who supported the measure probably didn’t care in the first place if its mandated procedures offended women. That was the whole point, wasn’t it?
At a minimum, the barely-averted disaster in the commonwealth raises questions about whether the same intellectual disconnect is happening in New Hampshire, where the Republican-dominated legislature is pressing ahead with anti-abortion measures over the objections of medical experts. Or in Iowa, where a GOP lawmaker recently introduced a bill that would ban abortions and generate potential life sentences in prison for doctors who perform what the law calls “feticide.” Or in Nebraska, where legislators are considering a bill that would create a legal defense — justifiable homicide, it’s called — for the murder of a doctor who intends to harm a fetus.
[…]
America, sadly, has grown accustomed to “symbolic” legislation which is designed not to advance the public good, or even to become sustainable law, but rather to appease particular interest groups. The campaign promise becomes the pending measure; the donor’s crusade becomes the subject of public hearings. And what is squeezed out of the legislative process as a result of such pandering is the more moderate legislation, the more practical measures, which do stand a chance of passing constitutional muster and which do solve real problems in sensible ways. That’s no way to run a country — or even a state.
When public outrage forced them into a choice this week between appearing stupid about the ultrasound law or appearing venal toward it, Virginia’s Republican lawmakers, and the Commonwealth’s governor, chose to act stupid. It’s a choice that zealous lawmakers all over the country would be forced to make if their own senseless, unlawful legislation ever made it to the Supreme Court. But chances are those bills never will. Instead, America’s pet legislation will continue to whistle to all the political dogs out there while wasting everyone else’s time and money.
Read more. [Image: Associated Press]
relevant.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzwlzsrlqw1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
Symbolic Legislation to Nowhere: Why Statehouses Fail in Governance
The fact that Virginia lawmakers evidently didn’t understand what their law would mean to women, and what it would require of doctors, didn’t stop the legislators from pushing forward with the measure anyway. Ignorance of the law may be no legal defense to you and me, but ignorance of the law among those who are passing the law surely is the definition of bad governance. For the politicians now scrambling away from Virginia’s measure, however, pleading ignorance perhaps is easier today than confessing the truth, which is that the pols who supported the measure probably didn’t care in the first place if its mandated procedures offended women. That was the whole point, wasn’t it?
At a minimum, the barely-averted disaster in the commonwealth raises questions about whether the same intellectual disconnect is happening in New Hampshire, where the Republican-dominated legislature is pressing ahead with anti-abortion measures over the objections of medical experts. Or in Iowa, where a GOP lawmaker recently introduced a bill that would ban abortions and generate potential life sentences in prison for doctors who perform what the law calls “feticide.” Or in Nebraska, where legislators are considering a bill that would create a legal defense — justifiable homicide, it’s called — for the murder of a doctor who intends to harm a fetus.
[…]
America, sadly, has grown accustomed to “symbolic” legislation which is designed not to advance the public good, or even to become sustainable law, but rather to appease particular interest groups. The campaign promise becomes the pending measure; the donor’s crusade becomes the subject of public hearings. And what is squeezed out of the legislative process as a result of such pandering is the more moderate legislation, the more practical measures, which do stand a chance of passing constitutional muster and which do solve real problems in sensible ways. That’s no way to run a country — or even a state.
When public outrage forced them into a choice this week between appearing stupid about the ultrasound law or appearing venal toward it, Virginia’s Republican lawmakers, and the Commonwealth’s governor, chose to act stupid. It’s a choice that zealous lawmakers all over the country would be forced to make if their own senseless, unlawful legislation ever made it to the Supreme Court. But chances are those bills never will. Instead, America’s pet legislation will continue to whistle to all the political dogs out there while wasting everyone else’s time and money.
Read more. [Image: Associated Press]
relevant.
(via think4yourself)
Props to all the pro-choice activists in VA!
“But delegates and governor’s staff were scheduled to meet Tuesday night to strike a compromise after learning that some ultrasounds could be more invasive than first thought, according to two officials who were aware of the meeting but not authorized to speak about it publicly. Many of the bill’s supporters were apparently unaware of how invasive the procedure could be, one of the officials added.”
Really?
The Daily Show takes on VA’s transvaginal ultrasound law.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. • An Illinois House committee that normally deals with farm and wildlife issues passed two controversial anti-abortion measures this afternoon, before a packed room that included opponents wearing t-shirts that stated: “Women are NOT livestock.”
One of the bills (HB4117) would impose the same kinds of building standards and other rules on abortion facilities that other types of medical facilities face.
Proponents—including an official of Illinois Right to Life who testified for the bill—presented it as a matter of protecting women’s health. Opponents said it was a thinly veiled attempt to put the abortion facilities out of business, and that the rules in question don’t make sense at such facilities.
The second bill (HB4085) would require abortion facilities to take ultrasound imagery of the fetus and then ask the woman if she wanted to see it prior to the abortion. She could decline the offer in writing.
Proponents said women who see the ultrasound imagery might change their minds about the abortion. “This is a pro-choice bill,” insisted the sponsor, Rep. Joseph Lyons, D-Chicago, who is anti-abortion. “The woman has the choice to say `no’” to the offer of seeing the ultrasound.
Opponents said the requirement to create the ultrasound and require the woman to assertively decline to see it would be coercive and potentially traumatic. One doctor testifying against the bill noted it could mean subjecting rape victims to vaginal ultrasound probes that aren’t medically necessary.
The House Agriculture & Conservation Committee overwhelmingly passed both bills, after emotional testimony from both sides.
Evidently the right of conscience for doctors who oppose abortion are a matter of grave national concern. The ethical and professional obligations of physicians who would merely like to perform their jobs without physically violating their own patients are, however, immaterial. Don’t even bother asking whether this law would have passed had it involved physically penetrating a man instead of a woman without consent. Next month the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument about the obscene government overreach that is the individual mandate in President Obama’s health care law. Yet physical intrusion by government into the vagina of a pregnant woman is so urgently needed that the woman herself should be forced to pay for the privilege.
“The Way It Was”: Abortion in the US before Roe v. Wade.
Daily chart: global abortion rates. Having fallen precipitously during the 1990s, the global abortion rate has now stalled, according to a new paper. In some parts of the world, the number of abortions termed as “unsafe” is on the rise. Laws that restrict abortion did not seem to lower the number of procedures—on the contrary, restrictive laws were associated with higher abortion rates.
Restricting abortion does not reduce the number of abortions, only the number of safe abortions. In handy chart form!
An Indiana mother recently accompanied her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend to one of Indiana’s Planned Parenthood clinics, but they unwittingly walked into a so-called “crisis pregnancy center” run by an anti-abortion group, one that shared a parking lot with the…
Fucking shit.
Recently, Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA) spoke on the floor of the house in opposition to H.R. 358, the “Protect Life Act,” a moniker whose oxymoronic nature is clear to any medical professional who has experience working in the field of reproductive health.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky,…
(via reactorboy)
