On Wednesday, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, who is, obviously, Republican, signed into law a tripling of Oklahoma's waiting period before a woman can get an abortion, from 24 to 72 hours. There are only three clinics left in Oklahoma where women can get surgical abortions. Two of those would have closed had the Oklahoma Supreme Court not blocked the implementation of a law Fallin signed in 2014 that required clinics to have a physician on staff with admitting privileges at a local hospital.
The new Oklahoma law is a delightful infantilization of women, essentially saying that women are idiots who haven't considered anything prior to getting an abortion. While not as cruel as other states (ultrasounds are "available," but not forced), it requires any patient to sign an "informed consent" form. They can get the information from a website that all clinics must link to (and have printed versions of): "A Woman's Right to Know." There, they can get a list of all the services available, including those "pregnancy crisis centers" run by churches and more adoption agencies than you thought existed. You know what's really hard to find on the website? Where to get an abortion. It's pretty much buried in a "Resource Directory."
Florida's legislature just passed a 24-hour "reflection period." Senator Arthenia Joyner who is, obviously, a Democrat, put it best: "No woman wakes up and says, ‘Hey, I’ll have an abortion tomorrow.’ They’ve thought about it. Stop chipping away at our rights and throwing these stumbling blocks in front of these women who have decided to do what they want to do." See, this legislation says, all women really need is one or two or three more days to contemplate abortion. All they need is to see photos of fetal development. All they need is to be raped by an ultrasound wand. All they need is to make sure it happens before 20 weeks into the pregnancy. All they need, all they need is decided for them despite the fact that the women have decided what they need. It's such a goddamned insult to women to say the waiting period is for imposed reflection. Be honest. Just say you think women are too stupid to make a decision.
But on and on it goes, this mowing down of abortion rights in the states until they barely poke above the surface, as anti-choice forces hope that a President Cruz will appoint a Scalia to take the place of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and undo Roe v. Wade, all foreplay before consummation.
Over in Texas, the state's Senate voted to ban private insurance plans from covering abortions under the idea that if you pay into a group plan, you are helping to supplement abortion and baby Jesus weeps. In amazing rhetorical colonization, Texas Republican Sen. Larry Taylor said, "This really is a choice bill...People who are opposed to abortion do not like having to pay for it for others."
That's some fine logic there. So the Rude Pundit hopes that those legislators never buy anything that was made in China because a tiny piece of that money is going to support abortion there.
