Um yeah. Back ON topic, for those of you living in the lovely state of Ohio, you can go to a hearing on the bill tomorrow, June 13th at 10 am in room 313 of the Ohio House (in Columbus). Check out NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio for more details, or to sign the petition if you can't be there in person: http://www.prochoiceohio.org/s11issues/abortion_ban.shtml

My sister will be there & I wish I could be too...

Why are all of these states banning abortion now? Is it just because of the new Supreme Court appointments, or is there another reason I'm missing?

Sorry about this, Jessica. Feel free to delete my posts about the Duke case in this thread (not that you need my permission). I realize this is the wrong thread for this. I just couldn't resist responding.

felix - Thanks for the abortion explaination.

A FELONY to take a woman out of Ohio for purposes of an abortion? Can they DO that?

This law would never be upheld by the Supreme Court. It's not only a challenge of Roe v. Wade, it's a challenge of state's rights - i.e. the rights of OTHER states to allow abortion for Ohio-ians - and people's rights - i.e. the right to travel where they please to receive medical treatment.

What Ohio seems to be conveniently forgetting is that if the pregnant woman becomes seriously ill or dies, her fetus is unlikely to survive. Leaving no exception for the life of the woman will often mean two deaths for the price of one. How wonderfully, righteously "pro-life"!

Felix, that may be, but I think it's irresponsible to pass aggressive legislation to "test" the Supreme Court.

Odds are it will never make it to the Supreme Court as it is just too aggressive to settled las - why would the Supreme Court consider it and why wouldn't the lower courts properly turn it over? Furthermore, I am appalled by the waste that is being encouraged here, both in money and time through the legal system. I am appalled by the dirty tactics of the religious right.

Further, even if this WAS ruled constitutional, think of the consequences! Any state may rule that their residents cannot leave the state to obtain a legal medical procedure elsewhere! In Oklahoma, tattoos are disallowed - everyone drives to Texas. Will that act of driving to Gainseville for a tattoo now become a felony? God forbid that the states can so restrict their residents' movements.

Unreal. I haven't seen any discussion of the contingencies of this bill--for example, whether Brinkman intends for women to be prosecuted for first-degree murder or some lesser term incongrous with the crime they're building abortion to be. Does this cover ectopic pregnancies as well? Intentionally outrageous test case or not, the woman-as-incubator and primacy-of-the-blastocyte mindset behind it is just unbelievable.

I'll be happy to take up a collection for the purpose of hiring someone to take a steaming dump on his forehead whilst he sleeps.

Even if it is only meant as a challenge, anyone who has so little regard for the life of a woman deserves this as a minimum punishment. Hell, a repressed fuck like this probably PAYS a domme to do such things to him.

From the article, the most spectacular misrepresentation since "Dewey Beats Truman:" State Rep Tom Brinkman says ``I introduced this bill more than a year ago,'' Brinkman said. ``I'm 100 percent Pro Life.''

So, apparently, "100% pro life" means "if the fetus won't survive, let's make sure the woman dies too."

Seems to me that this can be considered eugenics: ensuring that only women who have non-life-threatening pregnancies will ever have another pregnancy. And, since that's all women are good for anyway, it's not like its worth keeping them alive, even if that wouldn't affect the fetus's survival prognosis at all.

Pro-life, my firebrand liberal pro-choice ass.

This makes my head spin.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the original Supreme Court that made the decision on Roe v. Wade extremely conservative? What's their guarantee that that won't happen again?

Wow. I certainly hope there will be a female exodus out of the state of Ohio if this gets passed into law.

I currently reside in/do abortion work in New York, but spent two years working at a non-profit clinic in Ohio(www.preterm.org). My heart and my gut is deeply entrenched with all of the women struggling through this there.

The laws in Ohio are already strict- a woman must speak to a doctor IN PERSON 24 hours before being allowed to have an abortion. This means 2, and sometimes 3 or 4 trips to the clinic, making things physically and economically harder for women than they have to be.

Not only do these laws threaten us if they pass- they scare women into thinking the state has some actual medical reason for bans, even when they don't pass. I know that when the law instated the 24 hour waiting period, it made women question their decision unnecessarily out of medical concern. I remember a 22 year old mother of 4 once asking me "why would they make these strict rules if they didn't want to protect us from something?" It truly made my heart ache to answer that question.

I'm currently working on an independent study that discusses the difference between my abortion counseling work in Ohio and my work in New York. From the work I've done, all I can really say is that our states are individually causing more and more women to undergo depression, anxiety, low self esteem, and where bans exist- extreme medical risk.

I'm sure most of you reading this are already aware of these tragic facts. I just had to type it all out to make it real. I can't shake this "Is this really happening?" feeling. So cliche, but I feel like it's all a bad dream.

I also don't understand how they could even effectively enforce the whole "taking people out of state for abortion will be considered a felony" law. How the fuck do they plan to carry that one out? Set up statewide border police that run pregnancy tests across state lines? Fucking assholes.

end rant.