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Sep
19
Hmm, well folks, we have a new contender for a piece of Ohio legislation that might need a 57 reasons post. From Plunderbund:
State Rep. Shannon Jones (R) introduced HB 314 yesterday- another crap, anti-choice bill aimed at whittling away at women’s reproductive rights in Ohio by extending our state’s already-restrictive laws on abortion.
The sad part is, two Democrats co-sponsored the thing: Matthew H. Barrett (D-Amherst) and L. George Distel (D-Conneaut).
A similarly-styled bill is all but a memory in South Carolina. [Update: see here for current status of SC bill and here for more on the controversy that sidelined it)
I find these attempts to shove, by law, this decision in a person’s face as insulting. After all the carrying on conservatives do about not wanting a nanny state, about not wanting people in their homes and taking away their guns and bothering their bodies and regulating everything under the sun, after all their concerns about malpractice costs for doctors. How much more hypocritical and nannyish and patriarcal can you get than a law that mandates that:
if an obstetric ultrasound examination is performed at any time prior to the performance or inducement of an abortion or the physician performing or inducing the abortion determines that an ultrasound examination will be performed as part of the abortion procedure, the physician shall do both of the following prior to the performance or inducement of the abortion:
(A) Provide the pregnant woman receiving the abortion the opportunity to view the active ultrasound image of the embryo or fetus;
(B) Offer to provide the pregnant woman with a physical picture of the ultrasound image of the embryo or fetus.
The requirements of division (A) of this section shall be performed at no additional charge to the pregnant woman.
What’s an “active ultrasound image” – they mean, during the time that the doctor is conducting it, as opposed to a still from some other person’s womb?
And who is paying for that section that says “performed at no additional charge”? The Ohio government that the Republicans don’t want to overhaul health care coverage?
No apologies here. This is a patriarchal, ulterior-motive-driven bill.
And I’m embarrassed that my state representative, Josh Mandel, from whom I haven’t heard in a very long while (reminds me that I need to email the nice guys in his office to find out what’s been up lately) would support such intrusions on the relationship between a doctor and a patient. Being pro-life is one thing. Supporting extremist measures that in the end will only torture the person who has already made up their mind after jumping through every other legal hoop created is another.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:26 pm September 19th, 2007 in Politics
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10 Responses to “Whatever happened to less regulation, keep off my body, fearing doctor malpractice costs…”
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I am saddened to read this on your site.
Brian, you know how I am about conversation. I sincerely would like you to explain that sadness. Tx.
FYI, I’m digging through the fine print.
Thanks, Puddle. I saw that and left a comment over there last night.
What bothers me a great deal when we talk about pregnancy termination is how the PR/marketing/messaging on both sides – yes, both sides – works so hard on its lingo. You and I have already tangled on that a bit.
And it makes me wonder – can we ever have a neutral set of words to talk about what everyone wants: as few terminated pregnancies as possible? What is neutral, especially if you’re talking with people who support one side or the other for reasons rooted in the maintenance of certain concepts that are only represented by certain words?
I don’t mean to be cryptic, but over the years, say, the last four decades, people on all sides of the issue have really allowed this language thing to get in the way of helping the people who most need the help and instead, turning into a political distraction.
I’m saddened to see one oar short of a rowboat and standing in a puddle of my own piss pirate even commenting on jill’s site. so there.
A bill virtually identical to this is working its way through the system in Idaho. The difference between these and the South Carolina measure (and I believe a few other states as well) is that the SC bill would have REQUIRED viewing of the ultrasound. Only by that horrific standard can this be considered moderate.
Eric – Aw – look what you’ve done to my blog, man! Now I’m going to plummet from a PG-13 rating to an R for goodness sakes! Ranks a rot!
Terry – thanks for that info. I didn’t have a ton of luck locating what was going on in other states, just general references, as MSM is want to do, to “other states are…” I hate it when that happens. So S.C. was all I could find. The National Conference on State Legislature’s might have a good resource on the subject but I haven’t looked yet.
I consider this to be in the same boat as the laws that lawmakers say exist to protect people, and yet there’s no or little evidence that a harm is happening in the first place: that is to say, have we been hearing evidence of doctors who won’t show the ultrasound when asked? Wouldn’t that be the first place to start? And again, the hypocrisy of this stance compared to the hands-off stances in so many other areas – drives me nuts.
#7: You know me.
It’s been fun watching Guilfoos run circles around them though. Great fun!
PS – That’s not R rated material. You want some R rated material? LOL. Have A Nice Day
I always imagine you laughing or being otherwise expressive. A good thing. You know when I give a reason to be R, it will worth it.