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Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Everything You Touch You Don't Feel
Posted by Tata | 12:42 PM
Via Everyone on the Intertubez: South Dakota bans abortion.
How did South Dakota do it? The new law requires women seeking abortion to speak to the doctor, then wait 72 hours, then get counseled at an anti-choice propaganda station called a “crisis pregnancy center,” only after which would she be allowed to obtain an abortion. This law received quite a bit of attention for overt misogyny inherent in the implication that women are too stupid to be aware of what they’re asking for when they seek abortion, or that women are so ignorant and incurious that they can’t be expected to have considered anti-choice arguments unless forced. But it’s looking like this law may do more than that, and may actually make abortion impossible to get in South Dakota.

This works in two ways. Right away, it was clear that the 72-hour waiting period was an attempt to force the sole abortion provider in the state, a Planned Parenthood in Sioux Falls, to drop the service. The doctor that performs abortions flies in to provide the service, and this requirement is obviously intended to push out any doctor who doesn’t work full time at the clinic by making the travel requirements onerous.

The “counseling” requirement seemed more condescending than truly burdensome at first, though it is true that many women seeking abortion really don’t have the flexible schedule to work in a few hours to be hectored by anti-choicers before obtaining their abortion, which pushes this requirement from being irritating and sexist to being truly an obstacle. But recent news indicates that something more devious is likely going on. As Robin Marty reported last week, not a single crisis pregnancy center has agreed to counsel patients seeking abortion so that those patients can fill their requirements to get their abortions. Not even the centers that lobbied to get the requirement pushed through. Without centers willing to say they saw the patients seeking abortion, patients could be caught in a red tape nightmare that makes getting abortions impossible.

There you have it. Amanda Marcotte lays out the rest of the scheme, but while the Devil was in the details on the way to an on-the-ground ban nothing but large-scale action will undo it. Have you heard this on the news or read it in the paper? No? Color me unsurprised. Have you heard Democrats speaking about this? No? Despite the fact that the majority of Democratic Party supporters are women, you won't hear a peep.

The forced-birth people have claimed a significant victory here. Where are the Democrats?
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2 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
I read somewhere that part of the problem is that pro-choice organizations are not challenging the laws in court.

Reason: they don't want any of these cases ending up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. They're afraid that with the Supreme Court we have (now pretty much an adjunct of the Republican Party), Roe vs. Wade would be overturned by this supposedly "non-judicial activist" Court...

Yep, that's the sad state we have arrived at. The assholes win by default...
5/11/11, 1:24 PM  
Anonymous mandt said...
South Dakota is the Arizona of after-birthers.
5/11/11, 3:30 PM  
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