The NY times is reporting that it will effect 2,000 women who are clients of the clinics. I support their objective (to get more protection from violent pro-life protesters and to have more laws in support of reproductive justice), but I wish they could have found a way to protest that didn't involve not performing abortions, which seems to me to play into the pro-life movement's hands.

I absolutely agree.

Well, at least there are the public health clinics that I guess 10% end up going to anyway.

Although, those might be more stringent on making sure all the abortions taken place there are for physical health reasons. Which is probably why 90% of women don't go to them.

I don't know if this will change the law, but maybe it will cause the law enforcement to look the other way next time.

Sorry, this is totally unrelated to the above, but I just wanted to make sure Feministing's readers had heard about the high school in Denver that requires students who have just given birth to return to school the day after they get out of the hospital. Students are lobbying for a four-week maternity leave. Taryn here at NWLC has the details: http://nwlc.blogs.com/womenstake/2008/01/denver-high-sch.html

"Sorry, this is totally unrelated to the above, but I just wanted to make sure Feministing's readers had heard about the high school in Denver that requires students who have just given birth to return to school the day after they get out of the hospital."

Yeah, I heard about that too. Is the school refusing to accept doctors'/equivalents' notes explaining the students' need for leave (and need for tutoring at home during extended leave), or are the doctors/equivalents refusing to write notes asking for leave in the first place.

Either way, WTF?

I can understand not wanting to let kids excuse themselves from school in case a few make stuff up*, but some of the adults who are supposed to help kids who do need excused absence clearly aren't helping!

* Like if a 14-year-old stuffed a pillow up her clothes for a few months in an attempt to fake a need for maternity leave knowing the school admins wouldn't want to examine her themselves, I guess. Sure it's unlikely, but so was a 10-year-old gluing himself to bed to skip school...

"Pro-lifers have been trying to get abortions stopped for years and here the abortion clinics are handing them the victory. Stop abortions. Yup, that’ll teach those pro-lifers."

That's from a FreeRepublic poster on the topic. I wish I could say that he was missing the bigger picture, but in this scenario... I don't know if there is one.