HB 1217, the next step toward banning abortion in South Dakota, pings into my RSS reader. "Delivered to the Governor," the bill status reads. We are now one ill-advised signature away from an expensive and losing court battle.
The South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families has sent a letter to Governor Dennis Daugaard urging him to veto this bad legislation. Co-chairs Jan Nicolay and Elaine Roberts outline numerous reasons we don't dare enact HB 1217:
- HB 1217 interferes with doctors' common law duty to serve their patients.
- It forces women to consult unlicensed counselors on a life-altering decision.
- It gives those unlicensed counselors absolute immunity regardless of how negligent their conduct may be.
- It creates an unfunded mandate to establish the forced-counseling center registry.
- It uses sloppy definitions that infringe on a woman's right to seek counsel fo friends, family, and clergy.
- It creates legal liability for physicians for matters that may be outside their professional expertise or duty.
- It includes no exception for rape or incest: if a young girl is raped by her father, she will be forced to sit through a lecture from an unlicensed CPC volunteer about why she should carry her incestuous child to term.
I'm not confident the Governor will listen to these arguments. But if he doesn't, I'm ready for the bright side: pass HB 1217, and I will open a crisis pregnancy center right here at Lake Herman. Ladies, I promise the lecture will be confidential and brief.
"Women pondering the procedure would be told that having an abortion is generally safer than continuing a pregnancy to term, according to the group’s recent recommendations. Next, they’d hear that women generally don’t suffer any psychological harm as a result of having an abortion. Both statements are true, of course. Yet, the funny part (funny in sad way) is that such a script would never fly in this country."
http://www.thenation.com/blog/159104/british-medical-group-suggests-women-seeking-abortion-be-told%E2%80%94gasp%E2%80%94-truth
You can also bet on DakotaWomen Pregnancy Care Center :)
Excellent point, Larry! Pregnancy is awfully risky. I've even heard some women are coerced into conceiving.
Mandy, maybe we should go in together on a DakotaWomen CPC-RV! We could travel the state, make house calls!
That's happening! Look out Alpha Center Pregnancy Care Bus! :)
Remember that RV Gordon Howie bought for the primary? Maybe he's still got that beast and we could make him an offer. :-D
Tea Party Express FTW!