Today’s Doonesbury shows one provision of the Texas “sonogram law” described by MSNBC:
The law requires doctors who perform abortions to conduct a sonogram 24 hours before the procedure, display the images of the fetus and make the heartbeat audible. The woman can decline to view the images and listen to the heartbeat. The doctor must also verbally describe the sonogram result – even if the woman doesn’t want to hear it.
And in the Houston Chronicle we hear that it’s not humans who legislated this bill, but God! As always, the justification of this incursion on women’s reproductive freedom comes down to religion:
State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, who authored the sonogram bill in three consecutive legislative sessions, estimated the law will save 15,000 lives annually in Texas – if it stops one out in five abortions. “There’s no other piece of legislation anywhere else in the country that has that kind of impact,” he said Monday. “I don’t take credit for it. It’s God’s hands.”
Please click on the Doonesbury site to give artist Garry Trudeau “click credit”.
Goodness Jerry –
You never sleep!
It is shocking to hear these rules. We have had this anti-abortion nonsense put back on the agenda here in the UK. In Bedford Square (by Tottenham Court Rd) anti-abortion ‘christians’ have been using intimidation, filming women going into a clinic –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/13/40-days-for-life-anti-abortionists
Reblogged this on emmageraln.
Great idea to highlight these Jerry. As a Guardian reader I’d get them anyway but any effort to put proper satire of a ludicrous piece of legislation front and centre is a Good Thing. As is normally the case Garry Trudeau also makes a serious subject funny. I’ve also appreciated your efforts to gather together his responses to the gutless, head-in-the-sand actions taken by certain papers who normally carry the strip.
Vile legislation, just vile! You guys should really get rid of those nutjobs.
It is tough to get rid of the nutjobs when most of the voters are just as nutty as the nutjobs. This is the downside of democracy.
I’ll bet that’ll change. The technology is available, after all :
http://www.dangerousminds.net/site/comments/a_clockwork_orange_eye_scene_gifd/
Words don’t fail me. Reasonably polite words, however, do fail me.
the law will save 15,000 lives annually in Texas
Abolishing the death penalty?
Abolishing Taco Bell?
or
Abolishing the drug war?
I think the Senator should be required by law to literally pull that number out of his ass.
That number of…
…babies?
…hamsters?
…tennis balls?
other suggestions?
Pine cones.
Also, subscribing.
Well answered, Microraptor!
How about the 15,000 jobs they’re going to need in 18 years or less, or the 30,000 their parents need, now, in order to support them? How much is it going to cost, in real taxpayer dollars, to educate and provide healthcare for them, and will any of their mothers be able to afford pre-natal care? How many will have birth defects and/or genetic abnormalities that … I’ve seen too much in my life, particularly in my medical training and career….
““I don’t take credit for it. It’s God’s hands.” If he believes this, he also has to accept his god is the biggest destroyer of “fertilized eggs” ever.
See Ophelia Benson’s post yesterday for a grim look at this BS in action:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2012/03/a-triumph-for-the-texas-taliban/
Yes, that’s heartwrenching.
+1
That last panel is just…
..oh, snap!
I guess this so-called lawful procedure will help replace all the people that have been executed in Texas over the years. Most countries adopt immigration policies to deal with this issue
So, Dan Patrick openly admits to violating the Establishment clause…
Can we have ex-utero terminations of these G.O.P.s?
+1 Very late, but appropriate, abortions, all.
sub
Here is the argument I use against religious fundamentalists attempting to turn their wacky mythical beliefs into law.
Let’s see now, if Christian fundamentalists have their way and are able to establish “personhood” laws such that state and federal laws define a human to exist at fertilization, what are the implications of this… religiously? They are these. Since God is all powerful and all knowing, He is directly responsible for everything that happens; because if He did NOT want it to happen, it most certainly could not and would not happen.
So what does happen? This. Only 30 to 50% of conceptions or fertilizations survive past the first three months. The vast majority are aborted by God before the woman is even aware of the conception or before medical practitioners have the ability to detect the presence of an embryo. So let’s review, about 50% (up to 70%) OF ALL FERTILIZED EGGS ARE ABORTED BY GOD IN THE FIRST TRIMESTER. Whatever will we make of this knowledge that GOD ABORTS MORE THAN HALF OF HIS CREATED, FERTILIZED, CELLS-WITH-SOULS in their first few months?
But wait! There’s more. We have not even counted second and third trimester God performed miscarriages, stillbirths and neonatal deaths. And what about God performed sudden infant deaths and child deaths from disease, malformed organs, starvation, abandonment, failure to thrive, etc, etc, etc … God’s infanticide program is getting way above my abilities to calculate. This is 2012, not the Dark Ages… why kill like this God? WHAT REASON COULD YOU POSSIBLY HAVE, GOD, FOR DESIGNING SUCH A MASSIVE, PERMANENT PROGRAM OF INFANT MURDER THAT YOU YOURSELF CARRY OUT?
So now, tell me again, what’s all the religious fuss about a woman’s right to choose and contraception?