Jessica doesn’t want to know why the bill failed due to fumbling over contraceptive issues, but it’s actually pretty obvious if you’re familiar with anti-abortion tactics.
A bill requiring doctors to tell women seeking an abortion that human life begins at conception failed to clear the Senate Monday.
Bill sponsor Republican Senator Patricia Miller of Indianapolis did not call the bill for a second reading in the Senate. She said the bill will not move through the legislative process because senators could not agree about a portion of the bill that dealt with contraceptives.
This bill was posed as an “informed consent” bill which would require all doctors advising any woman seeking abortion that “an embryo formed by the fertilization of a human ovum by a human sperm immediately begins to divide and grow as human physical life” (initially a so-called “fetal pain” bill, the wording was changed in order to make it more palatable to the scientifically aware community). In addition, “it would also mandate that women receive information at least 18 hours before an abortion about the availability of adoptions and be told that having an abortion poses physical risks.”
Those pushing the bill ran into additional hurdles when others “worried the bill could be interpreted to mean that certain birth control methods are abortions if they prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus,” at which point the senators amended the bill to clarify that the legislation would not affect the legal status of contraceptives.
Yet the key in the bill’s failure lies in the theological belief that life begins with conception, and the turning point in the bill’s eventual failure appears to be the testimony given to the state senate by several local religious leaders who pointed out that the “life begins with conception” trope adheres to one philosophical belief set that endangered the constitutional separation of church and state.
The Rev. Michael D. Mather of Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis told the Senate health committee that not even fellow Methodists agree on when human life begins.
As written, Mather said the legislation represents one religious viewpoint: the belief that human physical life commences when a sperm fertilizes an egg.
”I believe that what is matter of faith should not be a matter of law,” he told the panel.
David Sklar, an intern at the Jewish Community Relations Council, read a statement by the Indianapolis group that called the bill’s declaration that life begins at conception to be ”blatantly indifferent” to diverse religious beliefs, including Jewish tradition.
”This bill establishes a particular religious opinion as legal fact, and sets a very dangerous precedent violating the separation of church and state,” said the statement by Lindsey Mintz, the group’s director of government affairs.
For what it’s worth, only five of Indiana’s 92 counties have clinics that provide abortion in addition to other reproductive health services. But that doesn’t stop the demonstrations outside the Planned Parenthood in my county, which has never offered surgical abortion and probably never will.
I went to PP today for the first time for my yearly gyn exam, since my Catholic university does not prescribe/dispense any forms of contraceptives. As I told my mom on the phone, “This is definitely the only doctor’s visit I’ve ever had that required me to have my bag searched and to go through a metal detector!” I hate all those anti-choice assholes even more now.
Informed choice? Yeah, *wrongly* informed, if this thing would’ve passed. Thank goodness.
Meredith, in what city is the clinic?
The one here in Lafayette doesn’t currently perform searches or have a metal detector; it does have video cameras in the waiting area/lobby, though. It also recently moved to a new location, way the fuck on the outskirts of town, and while I love the new facilities, I’m worried that this location further prevents the majority of college folks from going since a lot don’t have cars (and I’m not sure how far our city bus goes in that area; it would at least require several bus changes and a decent walk).
While I’m glad some godbags stood up and voiced their dissent, I’m concerned over their reasons. Only Methodist Mather said “This bill is founded upon religion and is therefore bullshit.” The others seem to be saying, “This bill is founded upon a certain religion and is therefore bullshit because it doesn’t recognize our religion(s),” as if a more ‘inclusionary’ bill would be permissible.
I’m so fucking tired of godbags legislating their morality.