Go Away "Legislators For Life"

Let’s start today’s rant with a little trip back in time. Not too far back…just a few months. In the contentious campaigning in favor of last fall’s abortion legislation, Leslie Unruh and her insane flock of sheep claimed over and over that their bill did indeed include exceptions.
This so-called exception was an emergency contraception drug called Plan B. As pointed out by many people, this drug actually does nothing to an already-fertilized egg. It prevents ovulation, and if the egg has already been released from the ovaries the drug will not prevent a pregnancy.
Of course, even if Unruh’s claims of an exception had been correct, it wouldn’t matter as the availability of this drug is limited in this state. Doctors have no obligation to even inform their patients of this drug, and pharmacists in this state can refuse to fill prescriptions based on their personal religious views. One local blog recently reported that a pre-med student in Florida who was raped was refused the second dose after she was jailed for an old warrant that was discovered in her background.
Thankfully, the abortion bill was defeated by the voters this past November, and little was heard of the issue for the next few weeks. When elected officials had their first meetings with the public in Pierre two weeks ago, nothing was said about the issue. Sure, Unruh’s followers had a couple of demonstrations, but they seemed to be appearing more to support Roger Hunt in his fight to not disclose who donated $750,000 than any piece of legislation.
Yet here we go again…the “Abnormal Minority” is back at it again. They’re now calling themselves “Legislators For Life”, and they have introduced a new bill that supposedly includes exceptions for rape and incest. Ugh!
What’s interesting is that despite their smiles for the cameras, nobody is rushing to claim authorship of this bill. Somebody has to eventually sponsor it, though, but a few names that you’d expect to be involved are backing away. Even Senator Brock Greenfield, a Clark Republican and director of South Dakota Right to Life, won’t have anything to do with it.
No true Republican should be backing this bill, as it creates more bureaucracy, along with a greater governmental involvement in the lives of our state’s population. For a rape exception, the victim has to report the incident within 50 days, and DNA tests of the woman and the fetus must be turned over to police. In the case of incest, the doctor must report the case to the police, and the victim must be given information regarding counseling. In the case of a medical exception, the procedure could occur only if the pregnancy would “cause a very significant impairment of the functioning of a major bodily organ or system”. In other words, a woman must be on her deathbed, and even then a second opinion must be obtained from another doctor.
In every case, the bill requires the doctor to submit a written statement to the department of health explaining the reasons why it was performed. Failure to adhere to these laws could result in a ten-year prison term for the doctor.
We’re not done yet. In the hysteria over this new abortion bill, little attention has been given to another proposal that would basically give Unruh’s pals a seat in the Planned Parenthood offices. As the Coat Hangers at Dawn blog recently reported, “it would require medical staff to tell a woman a bunch of things and force her to sign a pile of forms. Some of (these things) are clearly not supported by real scientific or medical research. In fact, the medical community holds that some of these statements are outright lies.”
And if that’s not enough, there’s actually one more bill regarding abortion that’s wandering through our Legislature. This bill requires abortion providers to post a sign in bold 44pt type (that’s pretty damn big) that states that it’s illegal for anybody to coerce a person to have an abortion…despite the fact that anybody who has any sort of medical procedure already is signing a form declaring their consent.
Do we really need to go through all of this again? This past election cycle was extremely ugly, and the majority of it was caused by the abortion debate. The Dan Sutton and Roger Hunt controversies have already caused enough dissent from our populace. The abortion fight is just going to make it worse. Can we please get back to important issues such as naming official state animals and foods?

Comments

Anonymous said…
The balance in Pierre is a little different this year. I know my votes were cast with a specific issue in mind when it came to the state legislators.
Anonymous said…
yippee skippee

take THAT, Lesbo & Runt

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