Here's this week's reproductive rights news brought to you by the women of Our Word (and at least one of the guys!). If you see something you find relevant please email it to me, bayprairie at gmail dot com

This week's news has been dominated by stories about the South Dakota abortion bill, an amended version of which passed the South Dakota House by a vote of 50-18 on Friday, Feb 24th. The bill (HB 1215) would ban all abortions in the state except to save a pregnant woman's life and it's been sent the bill to Gov. Mike Rounds (R), who has indicated support for the measure. Also in the news are related stories of other states mirroring South Dakota's efforts.

::::more below the fold::::

US states join abortion revolt to bring back ban

South Dakota approved an even more restrictive anti-abortion bill last month, allowing no exceptions for rape and incest. Its governor is considering whether to sign the bill 'If there is rape, it really is an injustice to that woman,'? said Roger Hunt, the bill s sponsor. 'But there are remedies for that woman. Family, friends, pregnancy crisis centres are there to help her, as well as adoption procedures to assist her. But the unborn child whose life is terminated has no remedy.'?

I was reading last night and I saw a reference to an imagined Billboard. Let me describe it to you. Picture, if you will, a photograph of a 13 year old girl, a tight shot, head and shoulders, she's unsmiling and appears upset. Superimposed next to her photo are the words:

Please Mr. Governor, don't force me to have my step-daddy's baby.

And that's how far we've come, as this is exactly what the grandstanding, gleeful, abusive legislators in South Dakota intend. Before your eyes now you see the true face of the anti-choice movement. They have no concern at all about any particular woman, or girl's, situation, one size fits all. If you are pregnant you will give birth. They do not care about your health, your age, whether or not you were raped, whether or not you were abused and impregnated by a family member. If you're pregnant your womb is under their control.

The only exception is if you are dying. And in many cases I fear that dying might be preferable to the "sentence" imposed by the legislature.

This bill is so outrageous I'm seeing push-back from unexpected and unlikely places. Back to the Times article cited above:

Two anti-abortion bills were filed last week in Missouri and there are further plans for legislation in Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, West Virginia and Kentucky.

Some US pro-life groups are concerned that midwestern states are moving too fast without a clear strategy. They fear a case may end up reaching the Supreme Court prematurely and may prompt a verdict that would extend abortion rights.

Politicians are rethinking their position in Missouri.

Missouri anti-abortion leaders question strategy of bills to ban procedure

One might think that a bill filed this week to ban nearly all forms of abortion in Missouri would have anti-abortion groups dancing in the marbled halls of the Capitol.

Instead, they're saying "not so fast."

Leaders of three of the state's top anti-abortion groups say they're uncomfortable with the strategy behind the sweeping legislation.

Meanwhile, some leaders in the solidly anti-abortion Legislature say the ban is not a top priority for legislators. And Gov. Matt Blunt told reporters Thursday, "I'm not convinced it's necessary" to pass a general abortion ban.

This is Matt Blount in that story signaling a possible stand-down. Matt Blount is so anti-choice it's unreal. The South Dakota lege is overplaying its hand. Matt Blount has his finger in the wind, unsure which way the wind of public opinion might blow. Now he's concerned about his electability.

I see unexpected push-back from the local newspaper in the Baptist stronghold of Waco Texas.

Say you're 'pro-life'? Please be more specific

This week, with South Dakota having enacted an abortion ban in a quest to force a Supreme Court showdown on Roe, it suddenly has become quite incumbent on each of us to inquire: "Pro-life"? Would you please be more specific?

Would you require a teen impregnated by a rapist to bear the villain's child?

Would you require an incest victim to bear her step-daddy's child?

South Dakota would. How about you?

These are the questions that should arise every time the issue of abortion is broached anymore. Because if the balance tips at the Supreme Court, how states deal with these excruciating contingencies could be in the lap of everyone who runs for statehouse.

South Dakota's abortion ban would allow an exception to save the mother's life. Talk about an imposition in a drama-drenched decision. Doctors don't know if childbirth will endanger a woman's life. They only have probabilities.

And this gentleman doesn't seem to want to "own" the South Dakota bill either.

Bush may not be supportive of abortion bill

WASHINGTON - At a news conference Monday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan suggested that President Bush does not support a South Dakota bill that would ban nearly all abortions in the state.

McClellan did not say that Bush opposes the state bill, but reiterated the president's long-standing position on abortion. Bush is "pro-life with three exceptions," McClellan said.

Those exceptions are rape, incest or when a woman's life is endangered.

One thing many noticed this past week in relation to South Dakota is this:

For the women of South Dakota: an abortion manual

I understand that you're probably really angry right now. Maybe you're reading a blog expressing that anger -- the anger that your state thinks it knows better than you what to do with your body. Maybe you're anxiously wondering where the nearest abortion clinic is, now that you will have to leave the state to get to one. If you have a serious medical condition, you might be doubling up on birth control methods, leading to a lot of worry and possibly negative side effects.

But what you need right now isn't the righteous anger the rest of the blogosphere will give you. You need more.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, when abortions were illegal in many places and expensive to get, an organization called Jane stepped up to the plate in the Chicago area. Jane initially hired an abortion doctor, but later they did the abortions themselves. They lost only one patient in 13,000 -- a lower death rate than that of giving live birth. The biggest obstacle they had, though, was the fact that until years into the operation, they thought of abortion as something only a doctor could do, something only the most trained specialist could perform without endangering the life of the woman.

The posting is an online manual for setting up an abortion facility. I'm not linking to the site as I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea that my actions might result in putting potentially deadly information into the wrong hands. I assume though, that many of you have already read it, or have heard about it. Many have. Make no mistake about this either, in the wrong hands these instructions would be deadly. I'm going to include a link to a comment by moiv made at Our Word this past week regarding the post.

Yes, I read it last week
Comment by moiv posted March 3, 2006 - 2:14am

"Molly" wrote that she has seen an abortion procedure performed. I've seen hundreds, but that doesn't qualify me to perform one. Even so, I know more than enough about the practice and procedures of surgical abortion to have recognized about half a dozen ways to seriously injure or even kill a woman by following her instructions.

When a highly skilled doctor with many years of experience in abortion care read Molly's post a couple of days ago, his immediate response was "OHMYGOD" -- followed by his supremely well qualified opinion that if illegal practitioners use this online manual as their guide, doctors in hospitals all across South Dakota are going to have their hands full.

What he said . . .

I include information from the site as an illustration of the concern that is awakening, and as a glimpse of a potential future for this country if abortion is outlawed once again. Passing laws criminalizing abortion won't stop them, witness Brazil, where abortion is criminalized and yet the rates are still very high. Criminalizing abortion will result in women taking matters into their own hands as exampled above, or seeking abortions in a black-market. 21st century anti-choice Americans overlook the fact that Roe vs. Wade was a Supreme court ruling that found a woman has the right to a safe abortion. The Supreme court found that, in its wisdom, because of a predominance of unsafe and often deadly abortions occurring at the time. If many women intend to abort a pregnancies, isn't it society's responsibility to see that women are allowed to do so safely? To me that's what Roe vs. Wade represents. It's a legal "bandage" thats been applied to a nation's bleeding wound. People grew tired of hearing about women they knew being injured, or dying. I feel the purpose was a compassionate one, an effort to stop the deaths while also taking into consideration the state's interests. Everyone has an opinion about what Roe is. The question should also be asked, why did it come about. What motivated it. It came into being for a reason. Undo it, the reason will return.

Something else I've noted this weekend that's related to South Dakota and the online abortion clinic manual is that this past Friday and Saturday the top search phrase at technorati was "do it yourself abortion". For over 24 hours this was the phrase used most to search their blog index. "do it yourself abortion".

Unbelievable.

The South Dakota bill as passed is also not only bad law, it will be creating new areas within the law, something that's not been seen before in the past. Perhaps one of the interesting points about the South Dakota Law was mentioned at Lawyers Guns and Money. Due process for the unborn.

South Dakota: Aftermath Round-Up

-In comments to this post, commenter Joe uncovers a remarkable fact about the SD ban on abortion: "In passing the bill, the Senate amended it to make it even more pro-life, adding a sentence to state that the due process clause of South Dakota's constitution 'applies equally to born and unborn human beings.'" If applied seriously, the absurd effects of this claim would be immediately manifest, starting with state micro-regulation of a woman's pregnancy. Every miscarriage would have to be the subject of a significant policy investigation.

Due process for the zygote and fetus is something new under the sun, an American innovation. Here is Lynn Paltrow on the subject taken from her Testimony to the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion.

It is not possible to treat pregnant women and fetuses as competing legal entities in the context of abortion without undermining the health, well-being and safety of all pregnant women and new mothers.

If pregnancy is a "legal" "relationship," with opposing rights and the possibility of state oversight, the implications for the civil rights, health and well-being of pregnant women and their children is in serious question. Does a pregnant woman who cannot overcome her addiction to cigarettes violate this "legal" "relationship," making her an appropriate subject for court ordered treatment, arrest for child endangerment, or child welfare interventions? Does a woman lose her right to informed medical decision when she becomes pregnant? Could the state mandate that all women deliver by c-section because of perceived benefits to the unborn child? Could the state outlaw vaginal births after c-sections?

Similarly, if pregnancy is viewed as a legal relationship between completely separate parties having separate, competing rights, shouldn't every woman who has experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth be questioned about the extent to which she may have contributed to that pregnancy loss and whether those actions or omissions constituted an appropriate legal waiver?

These questions do not represent far-fetched hypothetical possibilities.

For the last 30 years anti-abortion rhetoric has portrayed abortion as murder and the women who have those abortions as "baby killers" and "murderers." Increasingly, all pregnant women are being viewed as proper subjects of the criminal law and court supervision. Pregnant women in more than 30 states including South Dakota have been arrested based on the claim that a health problem, action or circumstance a woman experienced during pregnancy can be treated as child abuse of she continues to term, or murder if she suffers a miscarriage or stillbirth. Women in California, Florida, Utah, South Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and North Carolina have been charged with manslaughter and even first-degree murder for having suffered unintentional stillbirths. Prosecutors in these cases have argued that something they did or did not do during pregnancy caused these pregnancy losses. In some cases the pregnancy loss is blamed on an untreated drug problem, in another a severely depressed woman was arrested after an attempted suicide might have contributed to a pregnancy loss, and in another it was the pregnant woman's decision to delay having a c-section that transformed her into a murderer. Such prosecutions continue despite the lack of authorizing legislation, court rulings rejecting such misuse of state law, and in spite of the overwhelming oppositions from medical, child welfare and public health organizations.

Today, many pregnant women and newly delivered birth mothers also face child welfare interventions based on the claim that something they did or did not do during pregnancy constitutes child abuse or neglect. Women for example who have tested positive for illegal drugs and even for drugs prescribed to them during labor, have had their children removed by child welfare authorities who viewed these women as somehow violating a contractual or legal relationship to their unborn children. This is true in spite of the fact that not a single state, including South Dakota, has enough drug treatment available for all of the pregnant and parenting women who want and need it.

Finally, the earlier exampled of forced surgery (see below) over the objections of pregnant women, husbands and doctors has been the direct result of giving legitimacy to the idea of legal separation between pregnant women and the fetuses they carry.

This Task Force must recognize that to oppose the recognition of fetal person-hood as a matter of law is not to deny the value and importance of potential life as matter of religious belief, emotional conviction, or personal experience. Rather, by rejecting such a new legal construct, the Task Force can improve both maternal and fetal health and ensure that no family ever had to endure the losses that Angela Carder's family suffered at the hands of the state, in the name of fetal rights.

(editor: The forced surgery case mentioned above follows:)

I begin with the case of Angela Carder: Angela Carder at 27 years old and 25 weeks pregnant became critically ill. She, her husband, and her parents as well as her attending physicians all agreed on treatment designed to keep her alive for as long as possible. The hospital, however, called an emergency hearing to determine the rights of the fetus. A lawyer appointed for the fetus used the anti-abortion argument that fetuses are separate legal persons with independent rights. This lawyer argued that the fetus had a right to life and that what Angela Carder, her husband, and her family wanted did not matter. Despite testimony that a cesarean section could kill Ms. Carder, the court ordered the surgery, finding that the fetus's rights were controlling. The surgery was performed over her explicit objections and resulted in the death of both Angela and her fetus. The fetus, or as in Angela's parents words - their "unborn grandchild" - died within two hours and Ms. Carder died two days later with the c-section listed as a contributing factor.

The South Dakota legislators go to places even Solomon, in all his wisdom, would not dare to tread. That must mean they have nothing that even approaches wisdom. This bill will guarantee misery for some South Dakota Women.

The only remaining problem for the lege now seem to be funding the court challenge.

South Dakota's Genius Scheme to Outlaw Abortion
The trick? Privately fund a public initiative overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

A campaign to push the legislation through the U.S. court system up to the Supreme Court where South Dakotans can lead the charge to overturn Roe v. Wade, will cost over $1 million. South Dakota doesn't have that kind of money. So Rounds is studying ways of accepting into the state treasury private funds with which to wage the battle in the name of the South Dakota citizenry. In short,the well-heeled opponents of abortion are going to hire the public state government to fight their battle.

But while South Dakotan legislators have portrayed their state's political attitude as singularly pro-life, many argue the citizenry, if given a chance to approve or disapprove the bill, would come out against a ban. Thelma Underburg, the Executive Director NARAL Pro-Choice South Dakota, argues that defeat of a recent bill in the state legislature calling for a referendum, in fact, shows that "despite the right to life people saying it is a pro-life state, they know . . . if it ever came to a vote of the people, the majority think that a safe and legal abortion is a right."

The concern about how South Dakota's voters really feel about the effort to outlaw abortion is reflected in Governor Rounds's publicly affirmed reservation about the legal costs that the state will rack up defending this bill in the federal courts against the enjoinment that Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota reportedly plans to seek. Never fear, say pro-life groups, an anonymous donor or donors are waiting in the wings to pony up $1 million for the abortion ban's legal fees.

When asked if the state will accept such legal gratuity, the Governor's Press Secretary Mark Johnston answered, "There certainly has been discussion about that cost, and there does need to be provisions for receiving that money into the treasury," and the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader reported on Friday that a bill was being passed to set up such a special pro-life war chest in the state's treasury. But when probed more specifically about the anonymous donation, Johnston checked himself, answering "I can't think of whether [the Governor] has said that publicly, so I can't answer that."

The bill as it stands now, as in the Governor's hands for review.

Governor Rounds' Comments

Rounds issued a technical veto of a similar measure (HB 1191) in 2004 because he said it would have erased the state's current abortion restrictions while it faced a court challenge (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 2/23). Rounds during a news conference on Friday said he and his aides will study the bill to decide whether the language in the current legislation fixes the problem of the 2004 measure (Davey, New York Times, 2/25). "If the bill is correctly written, then I will seriously consider signing the bill," he said on Saturday, adding, "It would be a direct frontal assault on Roe v. Wade" -- the 1973 Supreme Court decision that effectively outlawed state abortion bans (Conlon, Reuters, 2/27). Rounds has 15 days to decide whether to sign the measure (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 2/23). If he does, the bill is scheduled to take effect on July 1 (New York Times, 2/25).

Here's a highly recommended article from the Denver Post that was just put up today with all the latest info:

Abortion? Never was much choice in S.D.

Sioux Falls, S.D. - When 20-year-old Courtney found out three weeks ago that she was pregnant, it hit the single mother - already struggling with a 1-year-old - like a brick. She cried, she talked to friends, and she came to a heart- wrenching decision: She wanted an abortion.

Then the real work began.

She had to take off two days from her mechanic's job in a small South Dakota town, find a ride and travel six hours one way to the state's only abortion clinic.

Some friends in her place had left the state. Others kept a baby they didn't want.

"You see the billboards. You know there's a stigma here," said Courtney, who, waiting in a Sioux Falls abortion clinic, would give only her first name.

"This is supposed to be a country of freedom. I don't think you should have to feel humiliated about a choice that is best for your own life," she said.

And to bring to an end this rather long post here's a list of editorials in the publications of this country on the South Dakota law courtesy of the Kaiser Foundation, for those who care to read more.

Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report Summarizes Editorials, Opinion Pieces About South Dakota Bill That Would Ban Abortion

____________

This past week we also had possible encouraging news on the Emergency Contraception front. I cite a story from the Hartford Connecticut Courant, due to additional on this matter that's specific to Connecticut.

Wal-Mart Agrees To Stock Contraceptive
Reversal On Morning-After Pill Meets Skepticism From Blumenthal

Officials of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced Friday the company will reverse its earlier policy and stock emergency contraception pills in all of its pharmacies (Nationwide) effective March 20, saying the giant retailer could not justify being the country's only major pharmacy chain not to carry the morning-after pill.

:::snip:::

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ruled Thursday that Wal-Mart should be dropped from the insurance plan that covers the state's 188,000 employees and retirees if it did not start stocking prescriptions for emergency contraception.

Blumenthal said Friday that he was skeptical of Wal-Mart's policy reversal.

"I remain significantly concerned by their statement that the prescription may be declined under some circumstances. We will immediately ask Wal-Mart to clarify that it will dispense this covered drug to every woman with a prescription."

Ron Chomiuk, vice president of pharmacy for Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, said the company expects more states to require it to sell emergency contraceptives in the months ahead.

"Because of this, and the fact that this is an FDA-approved product, we feel it is difficult to justify being the country's only major pharmacy chain not selling it," Chomiuk said in a statement.

Chomiuk said the company will maintain its conscientious objection policy, which it said is consistent with the tenets of the American Pharmaceutical Association. The policy, except where prohibited by law, allows any Wal-Mart or Sam's Club pharmacy employee who does not feel comfortable dispensing a prescription to refer customers to another pharmacist or pharmacy.

Based on the concern exhibited for the women of his state by Attorney General Blumenthal I think its safe to say this is definately a victory for the women of Connecticut at the very least.

I also commend the Courant for the accuracy of their headline. I've been following the Plan B issue in the nation's news for a while now and I rarely see the drug described by what it's mechanism truly is, a contraceptive. Thanks for the accuracy.

____________

This week sees another Supreme Court ruling concerning clinic violence.

Supreme Court Backs Abortion Protesters in Unanimous Ruling

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 '