Louisiana moves to outlaw abortion entirely

[Eastside Revolt]

http://feministing.com/2011/06/03/lo...tion-entirely/



Yeah, you read that right. Last Tuesday, the Louisiana Health and Welfare Committee passed, with a 10-2 vote, a bill that would make abortion provision illegal, with exceptions to save the life of the woman, but no exception if the woman was pregnant as the result of rape or incest. HB 645 (formerly known as HB 587), would send doctors who perform abortions in Louisiana to prison for up to 15 years.
The Times-Picayune reports:

The bill would make it a crime to provide an abortion or prescribe drugs with the intent of ending a pregnancy. There would be exceptions for medically necessary abortions, as certified by a physician, but not for cases of rape or incest. The measure also would bar the Louisiana Medicaid program from covering any abortion, also with no exception for cases of rape or incest, a move that state health officials said could threaten about $5 billion in federal Medicaid financing.

This bill is a “personhood” bill; it would redefine human life as beginning at fertilization and grant the fetus constitutional rights from that moment. It has the support of Personhood USA – in this video, if you can hold back the vomit, you can see a representative of that organization say that banning abortion for rape survivors is the compassionate thing to do. “If you really care about a rape victim,” she told the hearing last week, “you would want to protect her from abortion, not the baby. A baby is not the worst thing that could ever happen to a rape victim. An abortion is.”
It was put forward by a Congressman by the name of John LaBruzzo. It is also, oh, what’s the word, unconstitutional. It is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, and it is designed to provoke a lawsuit that will inevitably go all the way to the Supreme Court, which, given its current make-up, could very well overturn Roe. It’s an impossible double-bind for pro-choicers: do you let this bill stand and see abortion effectively banned in the state of Louisiana (and in the other states that, emboldened and provided with precedent, would inevitably follow suit), or do you challenge it and risk seeing abortion officially banned in all fifty states?
The bill, called the Human Life Protection Act – unless you are living the human life of a pregnant rape survivor, in which case, fuck you! – will be debated on the House floor on Monday afternoon. For more information, check out Say No to HB 645.
You can watch videos from the Health and Welfare hearing here, and hear Rachel Maddow explain how the Louisiana bill fits into a larger trend of “personhood” bills being put forward around the country here.

[PhoenixAsh]

Thats insane.

Aside from the fact that there is no rational reason to ban abortion....the worst that could happen to a rape victim is a subjective qualification that is the decision of the rape victim. If having been raped is not enough she now has to go through a 9 month period of uncomfortability in the knowledge that it is the rapists child growing inside her....a 9 month rape in fact. And after that she has to give birth....with all the physical complications and changes that involves.

How is this at all possible? How can anybody sanely argue that its not the worst thing that can happen?

What is by the way the likelyhood it topples Roe vs ?

[Eastside Revolt]

Thats insane.

What is by the way the likelyhood it topples Roe vs ?

Perhaps a more extremely conservative supreme court. Not that I really know this for a fact, just that I think this is what the article is suggesting.

[Ocean Seal]

I believe that this will probably fail as it would in effect overturn Roe v. Wade. But that doesn't mean that they won't gain territory. They'll just make some arbitrary exception so that this law can pass.

[PhoenixAsh]

Perhaps a more extremely conservative supreme court. Not that I really know this for a fact, just that I think this is what the article is suggesting.

Those are political nominations right?

How can a country say they have seperation of the legislative and judicial arm if they keep nominating judges through a dual political system?

[Red Future]

that would make abortion provision illegal, with exceptions to save the life of the woman

Wow ....this was the stand on abortion in the 1860s in some some States...real progress here.

[redSHARP]

it will be stuck down. what really worried me was the man in Colorado who plead not guilty to murdering a reproductive health doctor because he was defending unborn children. thank god the judge called BS on that; it could have set a very unhealthy precedent.

[dernier combat]

no exception if the woman was pregnant as the result of rape

holy fuck, what?

[Ocean Seal]

holy fuck, what?

Yeah I've heard sexists repeatedly talk about how it isn't important if a woman is raped because she can just put her child up for adoption. And of course they go into the rhetoric that killing babies is far worse than the feminist "invention" of rape. There are people like that in this world and there is probably a greater concentration of them in the deep South.

[Summerspeaker]

Yikes! So much for claims that feminism has already run its course. What a nightmare.