After weeks of victories, if not in legislatures than at least in public discourse, women's rights have gone back to being trampled, thanks to new legislation in Mississippi and Georgia that manages to not only unneccessarily restricting abortion access, but do so in the most insulting way possible.
First, Mississippi, because it was about time MS wasn't last in something. Laura Bassett at the Huffington Post breaks down a new law that could effectively close the only remaining abortion clinic in the state over a non-health related technicality.
Mississippi House Bill 1390 requires that all physicians who perform abortions have admitting privileges at a local hospital and be board certified in obstetrics and gynecology. While all of the physicians at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization are currently board certified OB-GYNs, only one of them has admitting privileges at a local hospital. And since hospitals have the right to refuse admitting privileges to physicians, and two of Jackson's hospitals have Christian affiliations, it may be difficult for the other physicians at the clinic to comply with the law by the July 1st deadline.
This is part of the pro-life's recent death-by-a-thousand cuts tactic: if they can't overturn Roe v Wade outright, they'll make accessing and performing abortions so onerous that the practice will be effectively impossible. "Up to this point we’ve jumped through the hoop," the clinic's owner, told Politico. "If you mandate something that can’t be accomplished, I don’t believe that’s constitutional."
Meanwhile, Basset lights on an interesting exchange between two lawmakers:
The State Senate voted to pass the bill Wednesday, but it was held for further debate on Thursday, when lawmakers had an odd exchange over the bill on the Senate floor. Sen. Kenny Wayne Jones (D-Canton) asked Sen. Dean Kirby (R-Pearl), who chairs the Senate Public Health Committee, whether ending abortions in the state would force women to resort to dangerous, back-alley abortions.
"That's what we're trying to stop here, the coat-hanger abortions," Kirby replied, in reference to the abortions provided at the clinic in Jackson. "The purpose of this bill is to stop back-room abortions."
Guh?
Meanwhile in Georgia, legislators passed a bill criminalizing abortion after 20 weeks, with no exempt for rape or incest. Here's the gem of the debate, as reported in Ms.:
Commonly referred to as the “fetal pain bill” by Georgian Republicans and as the “women as livestock bill” by everyone else, HB 954 garnered national attention this month when state Rep. Terry England (R-Auburn) compared pregnant women carrying stillborn fetuses to the cows and pigs on his farm. According to Rep. England and his warped thought process, if farmers have to “deliver calves, dead or alive,” then a woman carrying a dead fetus, or one not expected to survive, should have to carry it to term.
The bill highlights just as how much pro-life legislation has a tendency to bleed into mysogyny. The lawmakers were unable to make arguments in favor of restricting women's access to health care and making their bodies subject to intrusive government regulation without insulting women themselves, suggesting that the motivations go well beyond policy.
What state will we be talking about next week? Anybody who gets it right in the comments section gets a free condom.
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Related: Poll: Obama Opens Up Huge Lead With Women Voters
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