Month: March 2006

Georgia puts women at risk through its abortion policies. Though it doesn’t go whole-hog and ban the procedure like South Dakota, it chips away at it substantially. The Georgia senate just passed three bills which require any pregnant woman seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound that she is required to pay for; allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for medications that they believe terminate a pregnancy even if their belief is totally at odds with medical fact (emergency contraception and birth control pills never terminate an established pregnancy); and criminalize the killing of an “unborn child” at any stage under the guise of an anti-domestic violence measure, but define “unborn child” as “a member of the species homo sapiens at any stage of development who is carried in the womb.”

The legislators couldn’t care less about protecting Georgia women from abusive husbands and boyfriends. If they did, they would fund more domestic violence shelters and mandate violence prevention programs in schools.

Under its broad definition of “unborn child,” the bill threatens that women who undergo an abortion could someday face murder charges, which is what the extreme anti-abortion forces want. Because if Georgia law brings double-homicide charges against a suspect in the killing of a woman pregnant even with a pinprick-size embryo, then why shouldn’t women who end their pregnancy through abortion also be considered murderers?

The AJC editorial board is right: Right-wing lawmakers don’t give two shits about domestic violence, and members of the Republican party practically make sport out of rallying against things like the Violence Against Women Act. As for why women who have abortions shouldn’t be considered murders, well… that’s the eventual goal, isn’t it? This is just setting down the groundwork.

Now I’m all for increasing the penalty for assaulting a pregnant woman if that assault damages or kills her fetus. I’m for increasing that penalty to the same degree as it would be if the killing of that fetus were considered murder. I just don’t think it’s a good idea to define a fetus or zygote at any stage as a full-fledged human being when our Supreme Court and our Constitution say otherwise.

Of course, lawmakers in the Senate wouldn’t go that far in an election year. They still believe there are a few moderate Republicans who support safe, legal access to abortion. And the GOP doesn’t want to rankle them.

That’s why all three anti-abortion measures stop just short of making life too difficult for affluent women. It’s poorer, rural women who will be most affected.

Asked about the expense of the pre-abortion sonogram, state Sen. Nancy Schaefer (R-Turnerville) said insurance will pick up the cost. Hardly, since many poor Georgians lack health insurance. And a metro Atlanta woman rebuffed by a pharmacist who won’t fill a prescription, citing the new conscience clause, can just cross the street to another store. But that’s not the case in rural Georgia, where there may be only one pharmacist

.

Right. Since most minimum-wage jobs provide insurance benefits, and Medicaid covers the cost of abortions and abortion-related expenses.

I love the hypocrisy here: The GOP has effectively ended state-sponsored medical coverage of abortion, contraception and abortion-related expenses; has cut welfare benefits for women who do choose to have children; and has made preventing pregnancy more difficult. They target these policies toward low-income women, who are disproportionally immigrants and women of color. They complain that middle-class white Christian women aren’t doing their civic duty by out-birthing those brown folks. They cut programs that help women and their children, like Head Start, subsidized daycare and pre-school programs. They raise the costs of having children, and they raise the barriers to pregancy prevention. And then they act like they want to end abortion because they love babies. I get dizzy trying to follow it all.

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