Indiana state Legislature has passed an anti-abortion bill so egregious that even ardent anti-abortion Republicans are concerned about the effect it will have on women in the state. If House Bill 1337 is signed into law, abortions sought because a fetus has been diagnosed with a disability (such as Down syndrome) will be banned. Abortions sought over a fetus’s gender, nationality, race, or ancestry will also be banned. Providers who perform such abortions could be sued for wrongful death. This bill also requires pregnant women to view the fetal ultrasound and hear the heartbeat at least 18 hours before the abortion procedure, requires providers to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, requires providers or individuals in possession of aborted or miscarried fetal to cremate or bury them, and criminalizes the transferring or collecting fetal tissue, which would become a felony.
Yep, nothing says “We’re ALL about protecting the health of women” like a bunch of middle-aged Conservative White guys sitting around the floor of a state legislature trying to figure out roundabout ways to ban abortion. In this case, Indiana has passed a bill so restrictive, so counter to the spirit (if not the letter) of Roe v. Wade as to virtually obliterate the right to a safe, legal abortion.
Right; who says Conservatives don’t believe women to be the rightful property of men?
That Indiana is on the verge of effective banning abortion under any and all conceivable circumstances is as offensive and disrespectful of women’s rights as it is disingenuous and misogynistic. The way in which the bill cleared the legislature is truly a testament to dirty politics and the belief that women should in no way be allowed to have control over their bodies. The across the board abortion ban was inserted into the bill after it had passed in the Indiana House and before it was voted on in the Senate. Once the Senate passed the bill, it was returned to the House, where it passed without debate.
Really, what’s wrong with Indiana? How do the sorts of zealots who’d legislate women back to being legally considered property (with no options available to them save DIY abortions) manage to get elected? Do women in Indiana simply choose not to vote? How is it that this sort of draconian anti-women legislation even gets to see the light of day?
Amazingly, anti-choice Republicans who oppose the ban sound like pro-choice feminists when they voice their complaints. Rep. Sharon Negele, a Republican who previously took aim at Planned Parenthood with an anti-abortion bill last year, told CBS, “The bill does nothing to save innocent lives. There’s no education, there’s no funding. It’s just penalties.”
Rep. Sean Eberhart, also a Republican, said that he discussed the bill with his wife — who is staunchly anti-choice. Even she found the bill abhorrent. “Today is a perfect example [of] a bunch of middle-aged guys sitting in this room making decisions about what we think is best for women,” Eberhart said. “We need to quit pretending we know what’s best for women and their health care needs.”
The other provisions in this sweeping anti-abortion legislation bill aren’t really doing women any favors either. The law will undoubtedly increase costs to women who have to travel long distances to abortion clinics or who have to pay for cremation or burial services, will emotionally burden women during their pregnancy, will impede honest communication between patients and their doctors, and will deter medical researchers from using or collecting fetal tissue for their work.
When even staunch, reliably anti-choice Conservatives believe an anti-abortion bill to be a bit too far, you have to know something is deeply and thoroughly gefickt.
The sad thing is that the people responsible for the bill have actually deluded themselves into believing that they’re doing right by women and their unborn children.
Indiana Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma is not thinking of the living and breathing women whose lives will be forever altered by these laws, however. Instead, he is thinking of the fetuses — or as he refers to them, the “unborn children.”
“Those unborn children are Hoosiers and they have constitutional rights,” he said after the bill’s passage. “We’re not making a determination about women’s health. We are trying to protect the right of the unborn; they cannot speak for themselves.”
I’m going to take a leap here and hazard a guess that Speaker Bosma isn’t an obstetrician. If he was, he’d understand that the issue he views in terms of black and white is not anywhere close. I do find it interesting that Bosma seems to be all about “the rights of the unborn”…while evidently regarding women as little more than baby factories who should be seen and not heard.
Here’s what I don’t understand: If you’re a Conservative culture warrior bent on killing Roe v. Wade recriminalizing abortion, why not just display a modicum of integrity and moral courage and be honest about it? Why hide behind the “It’s all about protecting women’s health!” canard when you- and everyone else- knows it’s B.S.?
The truth is that this bill, like every other anti-abortion bill pushed in red states, has nothing- zero, zip, nada, bupkis- to do with protecting and safeguarding the health of women. In fact, most anti-abortion bills actually make it more difficult- in some cases, significantly so- for women to obtain such reproductive health care as they might require. It’s not about protecting the health of women, no matter how much Conservative culture warriors might delude themselves otherwise. It’s about ensuring that women are defined- practically if not in so many words- as the legal property of men with no right to make decisions regarding their bodies apart from the man in their life.
The bill now heads to the desk of Republican Gov. Mike Pence, an inveterate culture warrior if ever there was one. You remember him, right? The one who signed the “Ban The Gays” Bill into law before being forced to beat a hasty retreat. Stay tuned; this could get interesting. Pence is expected to sign the bill into law- no doubt counting on America being distracted by the Donald Trump freak show to notice, much less care. The Hoosier State will take one more step toward becoming “The Handmaid’s Tale State.”
