mandatory reflection
S.C. Senate passes abortion compromise
COLUMBIA, S.C. - Women seeking an abortion in South Carolina would be able, but not required, to view an ultrasound first under a compromise bill that received approval Wednesday in the state Senate.
The legislation is a softer version of a proposal that passed in the House in March that would have required women to view the images.
The compromise, passed on a voice vote without debate, would also require women to reflect on the image they saw. It meant to maximize the time between a woman seeing her ultrasound, if she chooses, and her scheduled abortion.
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State law already requires abortion providers to tell women the likely age of their fetus and provide them with information about fetal development and alternatives to abortion. Women must have at least an hour to consider that information before terminating a pregnancy.
In other bizzaro news:
Another stronger house version of the bill would have required a provider to give the woman a list of suggested baby names, to compute an astrological chart for a child born on the estimated due date, and to obtain a woman's signature indicating she had spent at least one hour consulting a ouija board and magic eight ball before being allowed to schedule an appointment for the procedure on the next full moon after a sunday. In this version, providers were allowed, but not required, to rub the woman's tummy and say "Hello in there little Justin/Kylie! What's that? You want me to tell your mommy not to kill you?" before the woman was locked in a tower for her mandatory reflection period.
2 comments:
That's just f'ing cruel. Sadistic, even.
It's more of this "woman can't be trusted with a big decision like this" attitude. That is NOT what the abortion debate is about for most people out there on the sidewalks fighting it (pro and anti-choice), but it seems to invariably be what the politicians wrap their antichoice pandering bills in to make them more, oh what to call it, socially appropriate. What's going to wash with more middle of the road casually sexist americans? "Women can't be trusted to make such big decisions on their own" or "Our social and economic structure is such that we need a consumable class. Allowing women to govern when they breed lifts some of the restrictions which keep them in that class, and also deprives the upper classes of a stream of exploitable young people as well."
I think the good old fashioned pokey sexism is just more agreeable or at least believable for some folks. It's a pity though - I'd like to see a stronger push to not allow the political right/antichoice side to define the terms of the argument.
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