Here some news on the New Hampshire Forced Birth front.
New Hampshire House Republicans just passed HB 1660, which makes it a felony for abortion providers to perform abortions after twenty weeks of pregnancy, based upon the entirely unproven and inconclusive assertion that fetuses feel pain:
Abortion providers would face felony charges punishable by up to 15 years in prison for violating the proposed law, although the mother would not be prosecuted.
~snip~
The bill would exempt later-term abortions under certain circumstances: to save the life of the mother and the fetus, or to avert the serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.
Well gee whiz. At least they’re not throwing women in jail — yet. Although, let’s not forget that this is the same type of bill that prompted Georgia Rep. Terry England to compare women to farm animals and suggest that women be forced to carry still-born fetuses in their womb. They probably won’t even throw us in jail. Maybe they’ll just toss us in a barn with a bale of hay. I sure hope the carrots are good. I love a fresh carrot.
It’s unclear whether or not fetuses feel pain. Women, however, do feel pain. But in Forced Birth land, the feelings of women are discounted because you shouldn’t have gotten pregnant in the first damn place, slut.
[cross-posted at ABLC]
porter
I blame John Cole.
Seriously, everytime I see you people post these stories I just laugh and remind myself of the saying “voters get exactly the gov’t they deserve”.
Remember, Cole voted for Bush twice and supported the Iraq war and (I’m assuming since he was once a Republican) was anti-abortion. Given half a chance he would vote for Kucinich for Prez or Howard Dean today which is just as bad since they would have a snowballs chance anyways. It’s idiot voters like him that are the problem.
Loneoak
Um, an abortion to save the life of the fetus? If you remove a fetus to save it’s life, isn’t that birth? Either the author of the story butchered that passaged, or the GOP understands uteri even less than imagined.
Also too, anyone know the statistics of how many abortions after 20 weeks do not involve something from that list of exemptions? It’s got to be vanishingly small. I’d check the Guttmacher institute, but I’m lazy.
Warren Terra
Is the question whether fetuses “feel pain”, or whether they’re human? Amoebas respond to aversive stimuli (“feel pain”). Your chicken dinner for damn sure felt pain. “Feeling pain” isn’t the point, humanity is.
If we were to decide that a 21-week fetus had graduated to the status of “human” it would be wrong to kill it painlessly; the other, more important side of that coin is that the whole point of Roe v Wade is that we have made no such decision – quite the opposite.
abo gato
What the fuck? New Hampshire??? I thought this was the fucking Live Free or Die state. WTF again? How is it possible that ring wing idiots have taken over a fucking New England state like this. Or, am I just that out of touch with the northeastern part of our country?
beltane
@Loneoak: The language of this bill makes it seem that induced labor is also illegal unless the fetuses life is in imminent danger. Who would have thought that stupid people would write ambiguous laws?
Yutsano
@Loneoak: I can think of one instance: where the pregnancy is twin but one of the fetuses is no longer viable. Then an abortion to save the viable fetus would be warranted. But that would be extremely rare.
Anya
Why aren’t women taking these unconstitutional laws passed by teahadists to court? Are there no plaintiffs who are willing to take this to court, or are we afraid of the outcome? I say fuck it; let the Roberts’ Court overturn Roe V. Wade. It can’t be worse than the current status, where they’re chipping away at the law piece by piece
Alex
As a philosophical matter, I’m interested in seeing whether ABL might have given away her hand here. Does she believe that the ability to sense pain is the arbiter of abortion’s legality?
If that is so, the pro-choice movement might be making itself a hostage to fortune.
butler
Which proves just how chickenshit they are about their own supposed beliefs. If they really hate abortion as much as they say they do, then logically they have to prosecute any woman who gets one, but they know if they come out and say it they’ll reveal the true depth of their depravity.
Thankfully Lynch is in place to veto this law, which of course wasn’t passed except to stir shit up since they knew he would stop it.
ant
@porter:
derf?
PeakVT
@abo gato: Voters in NH lost their minds in 2010 and elected anything and everything that had an R next to it (except for governor, thank goodness).
slag
Excellent image! Puts that original snake one in a whole new context.
Loneoak
@beltane:
It would also seem to ban scheduled caesareans.
Edit: By scheduled, I mean non-medically indicated caesareans planned in advance. It’s pretty common in some hospitals in Cali at least. Kinda gross, IMAO.
brent
How would a late term abortion be used to save the life of a fetus?
RossinDetroit
There will be no carrots in the barn. Nobody wastes perfectly good vegetables that could be used for baiting deer.
Free antibiotics though, whether you need them or not.
MobiusKlein
@butler: So the obvious out is for the woman to perform her own abortion. Twisted.
Mnemosyne
@brent:
IIRC, an abortion is any ending of a pregnancy before the end of the term, so technically induced labor would be an “abortion.” That’s why a miscarriage is medically called a “spontaneous abortion” — it’s the body ending the pregnancy before term.
Mnemosyne
@Loneoak:
Depends on what you mean by “medically indicated.” Both my niece and nephew were born via scheduled caesarian because they both have congenital talipes equinovarus (aka clubfeet) and labor could have been dangerous for both them and my sister-in-law. But it’s not a life-threatening condition, so technically it was an elective caesarian.
And if you’re someone who already had a caesarian, doctors are VERY reluctant to let you try to deliver vaginally if you have another child, so that second caesarian will be scheduled for before you’re expected to go into labor.
ABL 2.0
@Alex: no. my point is that just like with the “abortion causes breast cancer” meme the forced birthers are not using sound science.
McConnor
So is it impossible to anesthetize the fetus? Is that not an option?
Silver
@Alex:
I think what ABL is saying is that you need to be a real stupid or evil motherfucker to fetishize possible pain of a fetus above actual pain of a woman.
dww44
We passed a similar law late last night on the last day in the Georgia legislative session. The bill had presumed to have been dead for the remainder of the session just a day earlier. Planned Parenthood was sending out reminders to supporters all day yesterday saying the AJC was wrong that the bill was dead; that it was in conference and could come out at any time.
So, in spite of my emails and calls, both my Rep and Senator voted for this bill which reduces the abortion legal time from 26 to 20 weeks, makes no exceptions for race or incest, but does allow for termination of “medically futile” pregnancies. The latter was considered a moderating influence on the House bill, sponsored by Rep.McKillip of Athens.
But, the legislators and the lobbyists must’ve been tired:
Last night the legislators also cut the time for unemployed to receive compensation from 26 weeks to 14 to 20 weeks, depending…….on who knows what factors?
Way to go, voters in 2010. You enabled a state legislature with no Democratic counterweight and over the last 2 years they’ve continued to stick it to women, the poor, the unemployed, minorities, labor unions. I hope you are thrilled with the results!!
http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-government/georgia-lawmakers-pass-abortion-1401963.html
Loneoak
@Mnemosyne:
All those things you list are ‘medically indicated.’ Medically indicated does not mean ‘do this or everyone will die.’ My wife’s coworkers (she’s in the medical field) often plan their cesareans for the exact date of 39 weeks of gestation, the first day that insurance will cover the expense of an elective cesarean. They do it because they like the predicability and they don’t want to be in labor AT ALL. It’s true of fist time pregnancies as much as second and third pregnancies.
Also, it’s no longer true that doctors are universally afraid of VBACs. This is even more true of nurse midwives. If you want one, you can get it.
Martin
They’re looking for another SCOTUS showdown. This law is unconstitutional under the conditions set by RvW. They can’t ban abortions earlier than 24 weeks.
catclub
” At least they’re not throwing women in jail—yet.”
If they included throwing women in jail for murdering a fetus,
the law would not pass.
A woman carrying a fetus is not a full moral agent by their lights. Hence no jail time.
Warren Terra
@Martin:
The governor is a Democrat – a pro-life Democrat if I recall correctly, but not a crazy one. Chances are they’re just trying to get him to veto the bill, or trying to get Democratic legislators on the record as being indifferent to the Suffering Of Babies. It’s all profoundly disingenuous, and as you note would be unconstitutional were it to get that far, but I don’t think it even getting that far is the point.
grandpa john
When people say “Elections have consequences” they don’t mean just national elections. When the democratic party finally decides to listen to the constant warnings and pleadings of a few knowledgeable members of the party who are saying that state and local elections also have consequences and act accordingly, then maybe we could put and end to some of this detestable shit coming from the insane party in this country
Mnemosyne
@Loneoak:
I also live in Southern California and have NEVER heard of anyone doing that. Not one. Your wife may need to find less creepy co-workers, but I don’t think it’s the widespread practice you seem to think.
Tell my other sister-in-law, who had to have a caesarian with her second child because she’d had her previous child 14 years before and couldn’t find her medical records. Her doctor basically refused to work with her if she didn’t have a caesarian because they didn’t know what had been done previously.
dww44
@grandpa john: Absolutely agreed. There is no down ticket organization in this red state and the few Democrats in the state legislature, 98% of whom are African American women, had no voice other than a symbolic protest one in the passage of this legislation. The Democratic party here is totally without teeth and influence. Zilcho.
marianne19
These people campaigned on “jobs, jobs, jobs.” The social agenda wasn’t talked about. NH voters were certainly naive, but I don’t think the entirely deserved this and I assume many of these bozos will go down this fall.
dcdl
@Loneoak:
On the VBACs, not all hospitals will allow it. It depends if their insurance covers it and if they have extra anesthesiologist that can be on call. I tried getting a VBAC with my second pregnancy, but my hospital was in the process of getting the extra anesthesiologist and insurance.
My third pregnancy my doctor was uncomfortable with doing a VBAC because of thinning of the uterine wall.
I also had 32 week preemies who were momo twins. Of the two hospitals that are qualified for those types of pregnanies, one hospital takes them at 28 weeks and a different hospital at 32 weeks, so I wonder how the law would work for certain cases pregnancies. I was lucky that both babies were born. The couple before me who had momo twins only had one baby live and for the next three years no momo twins were viable. The next viable set of momo twins to be born had a whole host of problems.
I also have a friend who cannot carry boys to term (it took awhile before the doctors figured what was wrong). She “had” them between 16 to 20 weeks. She had two girls and stopped. I wonder how the law will work for that.
I love how lawmakers are doctors. With all the schooling and qualifications of a medical professional. Is it that they all enjoyed playing ‘doctor’ when they were little?
Persia
@abo gato: The crazies took over the House in 2010. They’ve cut pretty much every service that makes sense and Tea Partied all over the place. The one miracle is that they couldn’t get enough House votes to even make a show at repealing gay marriage.
EDIT: I see PeakVT beat me to it.