A brief timeout from the election to comment on a law that is so incredibly pernicious it takes one's breath away. The New York Times is reporting today on a lawsuit being filed to challenge an Oklahoma statute that requires every woman seeking an abortion to first undergo an ultrasound. Moreover, the law requires that during the ultrasound the screen be turned toward the woman, while the doctor must describe what is on the screen, including the dimensions of the fetus. Oh, but the woman can "avert her eyes" if she so "chooses."
I can't begin to describe the outrage this provokes in me -- the blatant disregard for women's constitutional rights, the denial of their agency, the imposition of an unnecessary medical procedure, the undermining of the right of medical professionals to use their own judgment and on and on. It's absolutely incredible that we are facing this kind of situation 35 years after Roe v. Wade.
So back to the election. One of the things that I dearly hope is that if Obama wins handily and we have a large enough Senate majority, that consideration will be given to passing a federal law codifying Roe v. Wade, including a broad preemption clause to prohibit state laws that interfere with abortion rights. In one stroke, such a law would blow away the claims that Roe represents an illegitimate attack on the democratic process, stop the state by state chipping away of abortion rights, and make the prospect of a Supreme Court reversal of Roe more remote and far less damaging. (The one issue of concern with such a law is that it could be struck down by the Supreme Court on the same lines as the Violence Against Women Act, i.e. that the issue lacks a sufficient nexus to interstate commerce for Congress to regulate it.)
We remain in a long war with the cultural warriors of the right. The only way to win that war in the end is to win elections and to do so resoundingly. Let's all work hard to see that in three weeks we win a major battle in this war.
that the issue lacks a sufficient nexus to interstate commerce for Congress to regulate it.
That interstate commerce issue is such bullshit. Congress routinely declares anything they want to be under their purview, and the Supremes just let it go unless it interferes with the right wing's crazed fetus obsession.
How about this: Make a federal law declaring abortion legal. Then, if any state has one resident who has ever lived in, traveled to, or might live or travel to another state in the future, and if said state does any business at all with another state in any fashion whatsoever, then under federal law said state cannot restrict its residents' access to legal medical procedures for any reason.
How's that for interstate commerce?
Of course, the real issue isn't one about Congress's authority to regulate commerce, but basic civil rights. That's why workplace discrimination is illegal, even if they don't do it to people from out-of-state.
Posted by: Stephen | October 11, 2008 at 01:24 PM
Stephen,
The federal civil rights statutes are all premised on the authority to regulate interstate commerce. And you've hit on what would likely be an important rationale for the upholding of the codification of Roe --the fact that there are state laws that attempt to restrict the right to travel to procure abortions.
I actually had a discussion about this with one of the leading constitutional lawyers in the country the other day -- a guy who has argued a ton of Supreme Court cases. And he was very concerned about the Commerce Clause aspects of such a law -- although he agrees with both you and I that such a decision would indeed be "bullshit."
Posted by: Sir Charles | October 11, 2008 at 01:48 PM
I've said this before (at Ezra's, if memory serves), but the whole forced-ultrasound-viewing thing is utter bullshit: it's just a blatant effort to slut-shame, that's all.
Having been pregnant and given birth three times, and had numerous ultrasounds at various phases, I feel pretty qualified to talk about this stuff. So let me state this: bearing in mind that the vast, vast majority of abortions are performed during the first trimester, all you're going to see on the ultrasound at that stage is a fuzzy, kidney-bean shaped cluster of cells. When I had an early ultrasound done in my third pregnancy ("high risk" because of my, ahem, advanced age), this was what I was looking at. And truthfully, I felt no real connection to that white fuzzy kidney bean at all. It could have been anyone's kidney bean.
What the cultural warriors are trying to do in Oklahoma (and any other state that requires this silliness) is shame the pregnant woman: See! There is SOMETHING growing inside you! Aren't you ashamed to even think of getting rid of it?
How dare they. How dare they try to force women to do something with their own bodies--something that they do not want to do--by shaming them. It's appalling, it's pathetic, and it's despicable. If the goal is to reduce abortions, they should take all the money they're spending on ultrasounds techs and invest it into free or low-cost birth control programs.
Arrrrrgh.
Posted by: litbrit | October 11, 2008 at 02:02 PM
all you're going to see on the ultrasound at that stage is a fuzzy, kidney-bean shaped cluster of cells.
Yeah, pretty much everyone I've ever talked to about it has been disappointed at their first ultrasound, even if they "knew" their baby wouldn't wave at them or anything.
As for abortion being something that women don't really want to have to do, part of the right wing myth is that for women, getting an abortion is right up there with an orgasm - those being yet another thing liberal women get to have in much, much greater quantities than their right wing counterparts.
Hey right wingers! I just said you can't satisfy your sexual partners!
YOUR WELCOME
Posted by: Stephen | October 11, 2008 at 02:49 PM
There's also the incorrect assumption that women are stupid victims being lied to by doctors. Anti-choicers really, truly believe that if women (who are assumed stupid) really knew what abortion was, they wouldn't do it. In reality, doctors often perform sonograms to determine how far along you are, and they already show it to women if they ask, or, in some cases, they show women what they extracted after the abortion. They give them the option. And it's a big relief for some women to see there's just not much there.
That's the other thing anti-choicers don't get. They're so obsessed with male power and male fertility that it never occurs to them that there isn't a full grown baby floating around there the second a guy comes. They can't admit that a woman's body is what makes a baby, not a man's ejaculation.
Posted by: Amanda Marcotte | October 11, 2008 at 07:22 PM
There's also no evidence that ultrasound requirements ever change minds. However, the more regulation you slap on a clinic, the more likely it is that they're going to screw up and not follow the rules, giving the state an excuse to shut them down. Also, a lot of these rules are designed to maximize the time any individual patient spends in the clinic, which is both punishing to the patient (who likes being at the doctor?) and reduces the number of patients they can see. Script reading requirements, for instance, require that the actual doctor read their bullshit list of lies. If a nurse could do it, it would save time for the clinic, which would defeat the purpose. The scripts also are ineffective at the stated goal of reducing abortions. You can't force the doctor not to say, "The state requires me to read this, but the information in it---such as the link between abortion and breast cancer---has been disproven by science."
Posted by: Amanda Marcotte | October 11, 2008 at 07:30 PM
However, the more regulation you slap on a clinic, the more likely it is that they're going to screw up and not follow the rules, giving the state an excuse to shut them down.
That's pretty much the basis for all the fishing expeditions against George Tiller in Wichita and Planned Parenthood in Overland Park, KS.
And the more pointless regulations you make them follow, the less resources they have to provide needed care.
Posted by: Stephen | October 11, 2008 at 08:39 PM
Amanda,
Welcome. (Or as we like to say around here "YOUR WELCOME.")
I can vouch for your contention that it is a woman's body and not a man's ejactulate that makes a baby. Otherwise as a teenager I would have had my only little colony of children living in my bedroom.
Posted by: Sir Charles | October 11, 2008 at 10:10 PM
These laws, premised, as they are, on the notion that women seeking abortions lack an understanding of what lies within them and the consequences to a fetus of an abortion, still amaze me. Somehow I'm not amazed, though, that in states that pass such laws there aren't similar laws requiring young men and women considering enlisting in the armed forces to view films of people killed or maimed in war, or testifying to the psychological effects of having served in war, to have killed others and seen those with whom you serve killed or maimed in the most horrible ways.
Posted by: mrgumby2u | October 13, 2008 at 01:25 PM