Restrictive Abortion Laws Passed This Year

Living in Missouri, I was appalled to learn that a restriction on abortion was passed this year that includes:

• A woman having to visit the abortion clinic at least 24 hours before she has the procedure done (known as a “two trip” law)
• Women getting abortions being required to receive an information packet including this exact language: “The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.”

Firstly, access to abortion in the state is hard to obtain at best. The people I’ve known who’ve had abortions have had to travel up to a full day to a safe facility; making two trips is adding another night’s stay in a hotel (in addition to the one required for the next day’s visit following the procedure, for many patients) and another day’s work or school lost, essentially punishing the patient even further than what she’s already enduring.

The language is also absolutely ridiculous. It is not the government’s prerogative to establish when life begins; if we let the government establish such medical and scientific information, we’d all be in trouble—and we’d all increase our chances of death by any procedure. They have no right to declare such a thing. And it’s simply false; if it were true, the government would issue birth (conception) certificates and social security cards on such persons—and pregnant women would be able to declare more dependents, miscarriage would be manslaughter, and the madness would be further taken into new heights (perhaps ejaculated sperm following masturbation being treated as life?).

Missouri, however, wasn’t alone in passing heinous legislation this year; nor was it the worst legislation. Feministe recently published a list of not only pending legislation and attempted bills, but also new legislation that was actually passed, including some of these doozies:

In Idaho, pharmacists can deny to give someone birth control. Not only can doctors refuse to perform a life-saving abortion—which, of course, breaks the Hippocratic oath—and deny emergency contraception; they can simply refuse to fill an order for birth control which, for a woman like me and thousands of others, can result in death. Way to go, Idaho.

In Louisiana, doctors who perform abortions are being penalized, and not included in malpractice protection; the state has also followed suit with Oklahoma, Utah, and other states in mandating that a woman has to get an ultrasound before she can have an abortion.

Many more fascist pieces of legislation can be found at the link. Don’t you just love how the American government deems itself an organization of physicians, capable of making decisions about women’s health and controlling their bodies?