Wednesday, February 16, 2011

WTF?




What they need to do is toss the whole thing into the trash!
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A legislator in South Dakota has filed a bill that, should it become law, would redefine justifiable homicide.  That new definition would essentially extend an invitation to South Dakotans to murder abortion providers.

Shall we?

I don’t live in South Dakota. 

I don’t have to live there to be disgusted with this legislative malfunction.

House Bill 1171 is a threat to abortion providers…and that’s a threat to us all.

Catch that knee!

When a legislator files a fatwa dressed up as legislation, we’re all in a mess of trouble…it makes little difference that this is a state bill filed in South Dakota.  This rancid piece of shit...an insult to the legislative process...is set to be debated on the floor.  That means that something that shouldn’t have been drafted in the first place if the legislator behind it had an ounce of decency made it out of committee…that other South Dakota legislators read that mess and thought “what the hell, sounds like a good idea to me!”

I note that this legislation has been proposed just a couple of years after an abortion provider was executed while attending church in Kansas. 

This is not a case of blissful ignorance over what people may try to do if given legal justification.

This is a case of South Dakota’s lawmakers knowing that people are willing and able to murder doctors because they disagree with the health care they dispense…that they know that and deciding that they should double down on and provide legal coverage.

Something wretched is brewing in The Middle and trust that the message of justifiable homicide will not be contained to South Dakota.

A threat to access to reproductive healthcare in one state is a threat to access everywhere...and a threat to those who provide reproductive health care has implications for everyone everywhere.

When I get emails from readers in the UK asking whether it is safe or worth it to be a reproductive justice activist in a region where legislators publicly ponder legalizing the murder of abortion providers…well, we’ve crossed a line that makes our state houses look more like gatherings of the Taliban.

And I use “we” deliberately…what legislators do in our name we own too.

I do not live in South Dakota.

But I don’t have to live there to be disgusted by this legislative malfunction…

…or to endure the ramifications sure to come when state government authorizes murder under the banner of protecting life.

To their credit, voters in South Dakota have corrected anti-choice legislative rancidity before.

I sincerely hope they aren't called on to do so again.

But if they are I've got their back.

Because a threat to access to reproductive healthcare for one is a threat to us all.

***logs off disgusted that legislators are wasting the people's time with this shit when there are real problems they should be addressing***

9 comments:

Ken said...

Thanks for this. When I first read it I was speechless.

What is this country coming to when state legislatures are considering laws to make child labour homicide legal?

Anonymous said...

Unbelievable. The fight continues.

LeeSee said...

Took a couple of sentences from your excellent blog to make my point stronger, thanks!

dinthebeast said...

Like Blue Girl said: Why don't they just start calling it South Dakotastan and get it over with? Seriously though, legislating murder? So who gets to decide? It seems to me that this kind of thing is actually crazier and more dangerous at the state level where they really mean it. As opposed to the garbage DC is trying to pull in order to distract attention away from the new majority's lack of any ability to govern and maybe win the next election anyway through culture wars like they used to. It's scary to think that just beneath the thin veneer of civility (even where that exists) there seems to be this mob who want to solve all of their problems with guns. That doesn't work. If I've learned anything at all from living here for 27 years, it's that guns are not a substitute for social skills, or good citizenship.

-Doug in Oakland

Anonymous said...

I read the bill's language, and it seems to say that the only person who can murder the doctor committing the abortion is the person having the child, the mother. Am I reading that right? In any case, the language is atrocious and doesn't belong in any law. Legalizing the murder of a doctor is disgusting!!

-davey-

M A F said...

Don't look now...but it looks like Sharia Law is coming to the US.

Looks like Glenn Beck will need to go back to his chalkboard and reformulate his caliphate conspiracy to include... gasp...Republicans!

Anonymous said...

On Glenn Beck: Isn't it wonderful that he has used a chalk board as a prop, as is he is a teacher, one who brings people out of ignorance into the light. Add glasses for credibility and he can pontificate. So contrived, so fake. Yet, people buy it. I am going to start my own show this way. Draw inane conclusions and opinions and a fact here and there.

Michael Simpson said...

Also when I first read this I was speechless. The first thing I thought of was "isn't that the state that is making it mandatory that every adult own a firearm." Then yesterday or day before in Yahoo news they mentioned that SD had the lowest income ratio of the 52. But then I thought about that abortionist in Philly who has a clinic who is now being charged with 9 murder: 8 babies and one adult who died on the table. This guy would birth the child then sever the spinal cord of the child. Now that makes me understand the feeling of some of these yahoos of SD.

Shark-Fu said...

Michael...
The case in Philly is the very definition of the exception to the rule.

South Dakota's legislators were not inspired by a rash of cases in their own state or even one case in their own state. They didn't even try to go there.

Let's not try to give them an out they aren't seeking for themselves.

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