A Mississippi bill that would have banned most abortions died last night when the House and the Senate couldn’t reach a compromise:
The Senate voted for the negotiations to try to put language in the bill that would protect the state's current informed consent law if the new legislation was ever challenged in court.Senators also wanted to include a provision requiring doctors to perform an ultrasound before an abortion...The House plan said that the proposed ban would not take effect until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that made abortions legal in the nation.
...The Senate conferees refused to sign the bill, and the House conferees refused to sign the Senate proposal.
I would be pleased if this wasn’t just a temporary thing. Sigh.
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Temporary is right! Across the country state legislation is attempting to end abortion and limit a woman's access to birth control.
I am from Connecticut, a more "progressive" state. This legislative session a bill was introduced that would require all hospitals in the state to offer rape victims Emergency Contraception. As it stands, 20% of hospitals in the state do not offer emergency contraception to rape victims. Of the 20%, some hospitals don't discuss emergency contraception at all, others instruct women on where they can obtain the drug (such as Planned Parenthood), and some write prescriptions and send rape victims on their way.
This bill, that would require all hospitals to offer rape victims emergency contraception, became extremely controversial and was viewed as an attack on religious freedom. You see, the 20% of hospitals not offering EC were the state's Catholic Hospitals. The state's Catholic Hospitals believe that women who have been raped should be given an ovulation test at the hospital. If a woman is ovulating (the time of the month she is most likely to conceive) they believe that emergency contraception is wrong.
Emergency contraception actually prevents abortion, seeing as it prevents a woman from becoming pregnant. If a woman is raped and not given the "day after pill" and becomes pregnant, might she choose abortion as a solution?
Legislators and advocacy groups in opposition of the bill questioned the bill's need and intention. I don't know about you...but as a woman, sister, friend, daughter and fiance, this legislation is necessary. All women, unfortunately, are at risk of being raped AND becoming pregnant as a result of that rape. The "day after pill" should be offered to women who have been victimized by rape as a standard health care measure.
This legislation died in the public health committee because it is an election year and the topic was just too controversial. Rape victims must go another year with a one in five chance of arriving at a hospital where they will not be offered emergency contraception.
How much longer are we going to allow policy makers to pick and choose our rights as women?
I would be pleased if that article didn't include a tacit assumption that Roe v. Wade will be turned over. That's scary!