Bush Backing the Wrong Side on Abortion Bill
Progressive Opinion: Personal Viewpoint
President Bush is backing a bill that could carry up to $100,000 in fines and/or a year in prison for physicians and other adults who help under 18 patients avoid parental notification requirements for abortions by getting them across state lines.
By now, the fundies have really gone too far in their attempts to push the "pro life" agenda into Congress. Do not get me wrong - I do believe that an abortion does involve the taking of a human life and while it should not be the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to preventing an unwanted pregnancy, it sometimes must happen.
This bill, however, will not solve any problems at all. Instead, it should take us just one step closer to the time when abortion is illegal.
Then we can go back to the "good old days" when abortion was performed in a back alley with a coat hanger, which presents real dangers to the mother.
Bill Could be a Public health Risk
Not only is this bill just another dishonest attempt by conservatives to make abortion illegal, it degrades young women to the point where they legally have no control over their own bodies. Therefore, this bill also takes us back in time to a point where women were considered property of their husbands, which is a mockery to any civilized society.
This bill in itself is a risk to those it applies to, because the only way for it to be bypassed legally is if the life of a young woman is in danger. Of course it makes no room for tragedies like rape because we all have to assume it is all the fault of the 12-year-old that she ended up with an unwanted pregnancy.
I will not accept crap like that for an answer because such assumptions and this bill are stains upon society as a whole and do not act in the interest of young women.
All who wish to defend the right for all women to control their lives and what they wish to do with their bodies should act to block passage of this bill and any other bills that bear a relationship to it.
President Bush is backing a bill that could carry up to $100,000 in fines and/or a year in prison for physicians and other adults who help under 18 patients avoid parental notification requirements for abortions by getting them across state lines.
Opponents call it "the grandmother incarceration act" for the penalties that could be imposed on non-parents who travel with young adults to end a pregnancy.As of now, the bill has yet to pass the senate, which it failed to do in 1998 and 2002.
But conservative groups say the measure is a way to ensure that the will of state legislatures is carried out, because it is now possible for a young woman to travel from one state to another with less restrictive laws to avoid having to tell a parent she plans to have an abortion.
By now, the fundies have really gone too far in their attempts to push the "pro life" agenda into Congress. Do not get me wrong - I do believe that an abortion does involve the taking of a human life and while it should not be the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to preventing an unwanted pregnancy, it sometimes must happen.
This bill, however, will not solve any problems at all. Instead, it should take us just one step closer to the time when abortion is illegal.
Then we can go back to the "good old days" when abortion was performed in a back alley with a coat hanger, which presents real dangers to the mother.
Bill Could be a Public health Risk
Not only is this bill just another dishonest attempt by conservatives to make abortion illegal, it degrades young women to the point where they legally have no control over their own bodies. Therefore, this bill also takes us back in time to a point where women were considered property of their husbands, which is a mockery to any civilized society.
This bill in itself is a risk to those it applies to, because the only way for it to be bypassed legally is if the life of a young woman is in danger. Of course it makes no room for tragedies like rape because we all have to assume it is all the fault of the 12-year-old that she ended up with an unwanted pregnancy.
I will not accept crap like that for an answer because such assumptions and this bill are stains upon society as a whole and do not act in the interest of young women.
All who wish to defend the right for all women to control their lives and what they wish to do with their bodies should act to block passage of this bill and any other bills that bear a relationship to it.
