Ohio Passes "Heartbeat Bill"

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/07/politics/ohio-abortion-bill/index.html

What this effectively does is ban abortions, because most women won't even be aware they're pregnant at six weeks.

By making heartbeat -- not viability -- the test they are going against 40 years of case law, and ranking the rights of the cytoblast above the rights of the woman. If she miscarries she can be prosecuted for second degree murder. If she has a drink she can be prosecuted for child endangerment. If the cytoblast is implanted in a Fallopian tube she can be legally forced to continue to carry it, risking her own life.

It is nuts, it is religion gone awry, it is government intrusion into the most private areas of a woman's life.

It's pretty bad. The general atmosphere surrounding reproductive rights is about as bleak as I've ever seen. Pence is rabid on the subject.

I have heard, however, that an absolute prohibition of abortion is unlikely — for the reason that the issue is a sure draw to a big reliable swath of the Republican base. A constitutional amendment or some other sweeping law which follows the overturn of RvW would mean less zealots casting ballots. They'd prefer to keep litigating.

Of course the practical effect of continually tightening every possible restriction will leave the option unavailable for the chronically poor women most at risk from unwanted pregnancies and least able to cope with the consequences. This is a policy which perpetuates a host of social problems down the road which the federal government has no intention of addressing.

Time to build the wall.

What nobody in the public eye ever addresses is that making abortion illegal has only a limited effect on the number of abortions that occur. What it does do quite effectively is make most abortions dangerous for the woman. So it compensates for the number of abortions it stops by killing and seriously injuring women.

The abortions that remain safe? They are for rich people, of course. A daughter who has trouble with a missed period or two will have her menstrual cycle regulated by a "D&C" that just happens to scrape out a troublesome clump of cells. As long as daddy can pay the doctor enough to keep his mouth shut.

Meanwhile, if people were really serious about reducing the number of abortions by, say, 90%, that is quite easily achievable. It would involve putting serious sex education in schools, making contraceptives freely or very cheaply available to teenagers, etc. Measures that the "right to life" (for foetuses) crowd are virulently opposed to. Lying hypocrites. But we know the formula works. That is how civilized countries achieve abortion rates so much lower than America's.

So true.

And I may be wrong, but I can't ever recall a WOMAN sponsoring a law to limit abortion.

Let's not forget that the long-term effect on crime may not be insignificant.

And, as Richard so presciently pointed out, an increase in crime could lead to the imposition of martial law.

NoCoPilot wrote:

And, as Richard so presciently pointed out, an increase in crime could lead to the imposition of martial law.

I don't remember saying anything about martial law.

I thought it was in something you linked, but I can't find it right now so maybe I'm misremembering.

It's been a common right-wing theme for years that them nasty libruls was going to steal all our guns and send troops into the streets to oppress patriotic murricans. As usual, the reverse tends to be true - it's the right-wing extremists who want to round up people who disagree with them. And it's their machinations that have militarized the police and created the prison-industrial complex.

But I don't think we are heading for genuine martial law. America has been steering towards a modern feudal society, where a wealthy elite lives in ridiculous luxury, while most of the people scrabble around in poverty. It's not been difficult to discern - it's a common theme of SF dystopian tales, has been for many years.

We're just one inauguration and one mass shooting away from registering and rounding up Muslims, either deporting them or corralling them into detention camps for the duration of the WoT. They will be made to wear patches on their burkas with a big red 'M' or a red star & crescent, and their businesses will be targeted for vandalism by overzealous supporters of Herr Drumpf.

NoCoPilot wrote:

And I may be wrong, but I can't ever recall a WOMAN sponsoring a law to limit abortion.

THIS one probably would.

Yikes.  Sounds like an easy overturn on lawsuit though.  Freshman mistake: unfunded mandates.