Kansas legislators gave final passage to a sweeping anti-abortion measure Friday night, sending Gov. Sam Brownback a bill that declares life begins "at fertilization" while blocking tax breaks for abortion providers and banning abortions performed solely because of the baby's sex.
The House voted 90-30 for a compromise version of the bill reconciling differences between the two chambers, only hours after the Senate approved it, 28-10. The Republican governor is a strong abortion opponent, and supporters of the measure expect him to sign it into law so that the new restrictions take effect July 1.
In addition to the bans on tax breaks and sex-selection abortions, the bill prohibits abortion providers from being involved in public school sex education classes and spells out in more detail what information doctors must provide to patients seeking abortions.
The measure's language that life begins "at fertilization" had some abortion-rights supporters worrying that it could be used to legally harass providers. Abortion opponents call it a statement of principle and not an outright ban on terminating pregnancies.
"Not an outright ban on terminating pregnancies." Yeah right.
Essentially these Bible thumping assholes are making it all but impossible for women to get access to the information to help them prevent pregnancies, and then following that up with denying them services which would allow them to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
Essentially the message to women in Kansas is "You may think that body is yours, but once you take in a little semen, your ass belongs to us!"
If this keeps up it will not be too much longer before you won't be able to throw away a used condoms anymore since it be considered "fertilized."
Ignorant people, making ignorant laws, to help ignorant teenagers, give birth to more ignorant babies. And people wonder why America has fallen so far behind other industrialized nations in the last twenty years.
Let this be a warning to all voters. I live in Kansas and am a progressive. Kansas has not always been this stupid. Only after Operation Rescue type folks came in from California in the 80's, did Kansas start to change to the dark side.
ReplyDeleteThe warning I want to make is that no state should allow Republicans to rule the state Senate, state House, and have a Republican Governor. The power goes directly to their dark souls. The mean-spirited, fearful, and all-consuming sense of power they have makes them want to destroy everything they don't like, understand, or fear. For eample, women, people of color, or people of no faith or faith sdifferent from their own.
I cannot remember a time in recent history where Deomocrats have ever behaved so badly. I do not see a time in the near future where moderates will ever dominate the Republican party so please make sure you do not make the same mistake of electing Republicans who promise to concentrate on jobs but then focus almost exclusively on oppressing women, the poor, and nonbelievers.
This may seem obvious, but apparently not everyone has come to understand this.
in my opinion randall terry
Deletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Terry
of "operation rescue" qualifies as a war criminal against all adult human females on this earth.
that's just my opinion, but i stand by it.
We are having the same problem with the Republicans in Michigan. Our "nerd" governor was elected during the mid-term elections with the promise of "jobs. We haven't gotten any jobs, but right to work, abortion restrictions and illegal emergency managers.
DeleteHoping we can get the democrats voting in full force in 2014 before it is too late, because I am getting tired of this nonsense. Next they will be taking away our right to vote.
Isn't Joe "Taliban Teabagger" Miller from Brownbackistan?
DeleteHaven't they already been hacking away at your right to vote in Michigan? Very scary stuff there.
DeleteBrownback, the Governor, is a convert to Catholism. His sponser was a leeader in Opus Dei, a highly conservative, narrow-minded movement within the Catholic faith. He is totally useless for the middle class and poor. He favors no taxes for the corporations, no income tac, and higher property taxes and sales taxes. He is set to cut one Billion dollars from education because he favors church schools. Go figure, \uh? His favorability rating is in tghe low 30's but taht doesn't stop him becausee h e i s doing "God;s work." What a creep.
ReplyDeleteKansas is ruled by the Republican Taliban. The state has slowly been taken over by the fundies. I no longer vote in the State and Local elections, shame on me, but there are no longer even moderate Republican candidates let alone anyone willing in most races to run as a Democrat.
DeleteThe zip code for Topeka, the Capitol of Kansas is 66601. I am surprised that the bible thumpers haven't demanded that the number of the devil be changed. It would seem that the most famous residents of our Capitol City are the Fred Phelps Family of Westboro Baptist.
I live in a really ef'ed up Catholic neighborhood in one of the more affluent areas of Brownbackistan. Not Topeka. We have highly rated schools but it is amazing the number of people that send their kids to church schools or home school.
3:22 & 3:17 You really know what we are dealing with here.
RJ in Brownbackistan (We are in the Urban Dictionary.)
Why isn't someone challening this in courts about forcing their religion beliefs on everyone?
ReplyDeleteHow is it they fight so hard for what might be, but don't give a shit about those 7 year old innocents mowed down by flesh-ripping, soul-stealing bullets?
ReplyDeletePro-life before birth, pry my gun from my cold dead hands after.
Just.don't.get.it.
Don't forget how they also support wars they don't intend to send their children to fight in AND the death penalty.
DeletePro-life, my ass.
Purpose Driven Life author's son commits suicide with a gun in his home, all blame mental illness.
ReplyDeleteSounds like what happened with Tony Dungy's son. Could not live up to daddy's standards, for one reason or another, and decided to check out due to the pain of not measuring up.
DeleteAmerica sure is "exceptional." Number One in a race to the bottom.
ReplyDeleteyup.
Deletefuck kansas. this is terrible.
ReplyDeletehttp://whatsthematterwithkansas.com/
where are the bills to get us out, and keep us out of wars. If you repect life to such a extent as this, anyone who kills someone in war should be put in prision.You should never kill an animal insect bird or anything then. If you don't believe in abortion, just don't have one. I'm getting so sick and tired of these religious nuts and these so called legislators. Where is all the talk about getting aids from not practicing safe sex anymore? We know with all this no birth control, aids will explode. Stupid people
ReplyDeletealso, this is proof that these legislative idiots do NOT understand human biology. at all.
ReplyDeleteit is COMMON for a female body to "abort" many fertilized eggs, often before the women even knows it happened, a period my just be a few days late and that's that....
so what of women attempting wanted pregnancies? if they miscarriage does this bill add "guilty of manslaughter" to their already huge grief over a function of their bodies that their brain and emotions could not control?
the human body will and does readily "abort" genetically impaired fetal cells without medical assistance all the damn time! is having a miscarriage now a crime in kansas?
Claiming to be "pro life" should not be used as an excuse to meddle in the personal affairs of pregnant women.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to be admired for a pro life stance, tell us about how much time, effort and money you've spent, trying to alleviate childhood hunger, neglect, and abuse.
In the 1990s I worked with a group of people from an Asian country for 6 months - 10 men & 2 women on an intense training program - supported by their government. One of my strongest memories was when one of the women (aged in her late 20s) told me "I will never marry - a woman's life is over once she marries."
ReplyDeleteNo different to many of the US states today - and the media attacks the President for calling a woman attractive. Why are there not wall to wall discussions of this draconian and stupid legislation? Guess only the white men leading the media discussions could answer that question.
RIP Dr. George Tiller, ACTUAL murder victim.....
ReplyDeleteWhat in hell is going on in this country? Somehow we have to liberate this nation from these Right wingers before they undermine the country entirely, which seems to be their goal. I feel for all Americans having to live under these fascist, religious totalitarians.
ReplyDeletealso, i ask the republicans and tea-people, how is controlling what happens INSIDE of a woman's uterus "small government"?
ReplyDeleteif this country wants to legislate what happens inside of bodies isn't it time for a "morality test" for who "deserves" a pacemaker? a new kidney? a liver transplant? can anyone notice how insane this line of reasoning logically becomes?
of course, the above conundrum can be avoided if we just assume "females" are not "people" but every single fertilized egg legally is!
...but what if those zygotes are XX? after puberty they lose all rights to control their own body in kansas, so we might as well just chop 'em up for medical research, yea? that sounds insane -right? so why it is any less insane to legislate what any adult female does with her body?
i've never, ever seen them explain that hypocrisy away....
I grew up in KS and know at least one of the Phelps girls or at least I should say, I went to school with one of them. I moved away in 1990 and I am saddened to see the state the way it is now - a laughingstock to the rest of the nation.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there is one bright spot. ;-) Check this picture out on Facebook and the original site itself.. the place sits right across the street from the Phelps compound. www.equalityhouse.org for the site and https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/c67.0.403.403/p403x403/531960_433344026755637_866517178_n.jpg for a shot of their house and the vehicle they drive around.
IMO, this urge for control began when them pesky feminists wanted to try and make better lives for themselves, whether they wanted children or not. You know, expanding their worlds, working outside the home and such. The NERVE! What better way to rein in the threat of independent wimmen in 2013 then making them terrified of their own reproductive systems?
ReplyDeleteSo, ladies of Kansas! Kick off them shoes and back to the kitchen with you! You won't be considered a "law-abiding" female citizen unless you have, oh, six or eight or nine kids that you may or may not be able to afford. Hey, why not go full Duggar and have 19 or 20? No strain on you or the environment at all! All those kids around the house and a tired Mom just may give Dad the excuse to escape to the bar every night, so it benefits him, too! And BTW, you'll be considered suspect by the Fertility Patrol if you have more than six periods in a row starting at the age of 15 or so. They'll be standing at the checkout, keeping an eye on those tampon purchases, so keep it on the down low and get your supplies out of state if you can, OK?
In snark and seething,
Your Auntie Knishes
And on a totally disconnected note.....people with minds likes these are all too often the ones that support cuts on health care, educations, and other social services for all this precious life after it's birth into this world and have no problem sending precious life off to kill other apparently unprecious life in illegal immoral wars.
ReplyDeletethis issue is such an easy fallback for the weak fucks that can't legislate - we'll let's just tell women what they can do with their bodies then! makes them feel like they're getting something done in the halls of the lawmakers! what a waste of money and time.
ReplyDeleteWhere is the law that states "All life begins in the testes"? Hey Gopstapo! You keep your nose out of my uterus, and I'll loosen the vise grip on your scrotum.
ReplyDeleteDeal?
SPERM is the Problem.
DeleteRJ in Brownbackistan
Questions:
ReplyDelete1. How do these guys propose to determine the exact moment of conception?
2. How does one determine the gender of the zygote?
3. If abortion is not allowed for the health or the life of the mother how is this pro-life? If the vessel dies, the fetus dies anyway.
1. In Arizona, pregnancy begins 2 weeks BEFORE conception, so the assumption should be that between puberty and menopause, a woman is perpetually pregnant.
Delete2. See, because you can't determine the gender, you can't have an abortion because it's either a male or female, otherwise known as circular logic.
3. Anti-choice laws are not REALLY instituted to save lives, they're passed to punish those wanton wimmens for having dirty, nasty sex. If the floozy dies while pregnant and takes the fetus with her, then it's her fault for being a floozy on the first place. And if she leaves several children motherless in the process, that's just too bad.
Remember, these are the same folks who go to church every Sunday and pray to the li'l baby Jeebus and want all of us to do the same because it's good to be a Krischunn.
What about IVF will this essentially require a women to use all the fertilized eggs. Has anyone there ever opened a science book. I see all kinds of ramifications from this and none good. Welcome to Kansasistan.
ReplyDeleteSo, if a unique life begins at fertilization, does that mean identical twins (who separate up to 14 days AFTER fertilization) share a single life? Are they a half life each? Hmmmm.
ReplyDeleteThere will continue to be abortions -- but they'll be done in back alleys, and sometimes by quacks, without proper equipment and sanitation. The life of the mothers will be risked in every one of these procedures.
ReplyDeleteTake a look at a couple of BBC series "London Hospital" or "Call the Midwife," for evocative depictions of what life was like for poor Londoners and immigrants who had more children than they could handle. Poverty, starvation, ignorance, child labor.
I never thought our country could go backwards, but it seems to be in sliding into the Middle Ages in pockets across the nation.
The right to privacy, one of the landmark decisions by the Supreme Court:
ReplyDeleteGriswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965),[1] is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. By a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy".
Although the Bill of Rights does not explicitly mention "privacy", Justice William O. Douglas wrote for the majority that the right was to be found in the "penumbras" and "emanations" of other constitutional protections. Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote a concurring opinion in which he used the Ninth Amendment to defend the Supreme Court's ruling. Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote a concurring opinion in which he argued that privacy is protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Byron White also wrote a concurrence based on the due process clause.
Two Justices, Hugo Black and Potter Stewart, filed dissents. Justice Black argued that the right to privacy is to be found nowhere in the Constitution. Furthermore, he criticized the interpretations of the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to which his fellow Justices adhered. Justice Stewart called the Connecticut statute "an uncommonly silly law" but argued that it was nevertheless constitutional.
Since Griswold, the Supreme Court has cited the right to privacy in several rulings, most notably in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), where the Court ruled that a woman's choice to have an abortion was protected as a private decision between her and her doctor. For the most part, the Court has made these later rulings on the basis of Justice Harlan's substantive due process rationale.