Big Anti-Abortion Rally in the SC Senate

On Wednesday, April 1, the South Carolina Senate is going to hear not one, not two, but four anti-abortion bills.  This will be the Medical Affairs Subcommittee, at 9 a.m. in 207 Gressette.  The bills are: H 3114, S 25, S 28, and S 130.  These are all basically the same bill, the 20-week ban that pretends to be science by claiming that fetuses at 20 weeks can feel pain. 

Is this a last ditch effort to pass one of these god-awful bills before recess?  It has the feel of a back-room plot, with old white men smoking big smelly cigars, doesn't it?  Just determined, before the break for the big religious holiday, to do something to get a wink and a back-slap from their Guy in Heaven.

I would like to understand why there are four of the same bills floating around, some with the same sponsors.  It makes no sense, which is at least consistent with the content of the bills.  Maybe it's a case of dueling egos, but if there is a rationale for flooding the Senate with copies of the same bill, I sure would like to be on top of it.

Let's just hope that a couple of the sane members of this subcommittee are planning some evasive action.

Here's one thing, though.  We can't expect our guys to fight this ugly fight without our support.  And we need those nasty women-haters to know we aren't going to sit by while they plan to keep us barefoot and pregnant.

So we need to call and email.  Every one of them.  Once, twice, as often as possible.

You know those anti-abortion wackos that block the Charleston Women's Medical Center?  The ones who show up at ACLU meetings, Planned Parenthood events, and pretty much any other place where people might gather to talk about preserving individual freedom?  They are tireless.  There aren't all that many of them, but the way they show up, Zelig-like, they seem to be everywhere.

That is the presence -- and the passion -- that we need to project.  Politicians may be bought, and they may have their own pet projects that disregard the needs of their constituents, but if you make enough noise, they will worry about their futures.  And those guys in the Senate who do support women's reproductive freedom and privacy need to know there are gazillions of us behind them, cheering them on.

So here's the thing.

Women of reproductive age, and the men who are also affected by these attempts to control their lives, need to shout the loudest, because they have the most to lose.  Be sure to tell these young women and men exactly what is going on this Wednesday.  The 20-week abortion ban seeks to prevent women from making critical medical decisions about their welfare and that of their families.  After the anti-abortion gang was able to get 24-week abortions banned with their "partial birth" false science, the 20-week abortion ban was next on their checklist.  And be assured that if this becomes law, they will be energized and will pursue ever more restrictive measures.  The goal is not just total ban on abortion, but a ban on contraception as well.

If you can be there on Wednesday, do it.  Your presence at the statehouse will be noticed.

Whether you are there or not, call and / or email the members of the Medical Affairs Committee.  You can do that from scstatehouse.gov by going to the Senate link, and then to the email link.  You can send individual emails, or an email to all Senate members.  I don't think it's possible to overdo your voice or your message.

You can also go to this ACLU link:

https://ssl.capwiz.com/aclu/issues/alert/?alertid=64213171&type=CU&ms=fb_150316_aff_SC_reproductive_rights

Feel free to add your own words to the prepared text.  And don't worry about how well you write; it is the message that matters.

If there is enough noise, it is possible that some committee members will be less eager to push these bills through.

Finally, spread this message through Facebook, Twitter, and your email lists.  The sad truth is that when these terrible bills do pass, it is a surprise to far too many of us.  Let's not let that happen.

And let's not let Lee Bright and Wendy Nanney dictate what happens in our doctors' offices.

When the Right Word Just Isn't Enough

A few days ago, I sent out an email suggesting everybody take a deep, calming breath, and get ready for the SC Senate round of "Let's Pass this Awful Anti-Abortion Bill."  The one that I was referring to was Wendy Nanney's pet, the 20-week abortion ban, that didn't make it through last season.  Wendy can't sleep till this bill gets passed, in spite of her contention that people have been just plain mean to her because of it.  Poor Wendy.  You might almost think that she is the one whose welfare is being threatened by the provisions of the bill.

Anyway, no time to take a breath, because that bastion of freedom for old white men, Kevin Bryant, has just sponsored S 531, a bill to ban "dismemberment abortions."  Or as those gentle folk at "Life News" would say, "Bill to Ban Dismemberment Abortions Tearing Babies Limb from Limb."

They may be barely literate, but they make up for it with hysteria.

As you may recall, fanning the flames of hysteria with misinformation and outright lies was a rousing success in the misnamed "partial birth abortion" battle.  This was thrilling for those whose grasp of science is conveniently misplaced but whose imaginations run to the wildly gruesome.  Personhood may not be as successful because it is too extreme, or it may just be that it doesn't raise the hackles as do phrases like "fetal pain" and the more objective sounding yet nonsensical "pain capable."  Giant paintings on the sides of buses, trucks and billboards may not actually represent scientific accuracy, but they certainly can produce Heironymous Bosch chills up one's spine.

In fact, the obsession with the gruesome, in spite of the professed concern for life, pretty much describes the anti-abortion battle.  Much like those so opposed to gays co-existing in their world that baking a wedding cake sends them into frenzies because of the portent of gay sex, the anti-abortion fanatic can't seem to stop seeing dead things.  Tiny dead things.

In this country, theoretically at least, self-appointed messengers of God are still unable to force people to their will based on warped ideas about religion.  So they are forced to resort to gumming up the works with the pretense of science, gussied up with horrid images.

And it works.

I believe it's time we fight hyperbole with hyperbole.  We need our legislators to get out there and write some bills that really, really stand out.

For example, for some inexplicable reason, domestic violence just doesn't have an emotional impact in our red state.  So, to take a cue from those far more adept at inflaming the masses, how about we call it the "Punching and Gunning Down Women Prevention Bill?"

Or the "Don't Starve Our Toddlers Act" in support of expanding food stamps (can also be used for minimum wage).

If that is too coarse for legislators on our side of the aisle, how about a "Prevention of Medical Surveillance" bill to counter the anti-abortion bills?  After all, we here in SC fear being spied upon almost as much as having our guns taken away.  "Death panels" was so effective in revving up fear of Obamacare that perhaps it could be taken out of mothballs and brought back for a bill to actually regulate insurance companies when the Supremes kill the ACA.  Or it can be used here at home against opponents of Medicaid expansion.

I do think we are too timid, and that is why we are constantly in the position of defending ourselves from the onslaught of rabid verbiage that takes center stage in a battle for our civil liberties and safety.  Until we are able to flood Congress and the State Legislature with equally dramatic bills full of fighting words, we will be at a disadvantage.  Thus far, the twenty-first century has not been the time for a reasoned approach.  To anything. 

Texas' Fact Challenged Child Protection Act

They actually are calling it the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act" over there in the Texas State Lege.  But the testimony by the gaggle of heart-thumping supporters of forced pregnancy truly makes one wonder just how gullible they think we are.

In 2012 it was called the Women's Health Defense Act, and I just wonder why that bill didn't fly.  So this year, much in the way the tobacco companies bought scientists to prove that smoking was not harmful, but without the scientists, the evangelists of the Texas Lege lined up this year to bemoan the pain that fetuses feel at 20 weeks in a bill comically calling 20 week old fetuses "pain-capable."  Which sounds to me like an extra feature one could have installed for a small additional cost.

And as if this simple-minded, fact-free argument, that fetuses can feel pain, wasn't enough, Michael Burgess stepped up to the plate to argue that fetuses also feel pleasure, and that he has seen fetuses masturbate.  Do we really even need to travel into the recesses of that mind?

This is not a funny topic.  If you've read anything I've had to say about our legislators need to force women to carry pregnancies to term, you know I don't think it's funny.  But there comes a time when the only way to address the absurd is to laugh at it.

Which leads me to Molly Ivins.  She was the hero reporter for the Texas Observer, where she wrote on the Texas State Lege.  She loved those lunatics, and she painted them with the clear strokes of reality, in their full crazy plumage.  If you haven't yet, read the book of collected essays that brought her to national attention, entitled, Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?  The story of the title is worth the price of admission.  Hint:  It began with an article in which she had written of a local congressman, "If his IQ slips any lower, we'll have to water him twice a day."

So you can see why I'm wishing Molly were here now to enjoy and comment on the idiots in the Texas Lege.  She would have a laugh riot over her favorite group of idiots as they continue to prove that they can indeed continue to get dumber.