Monday, March 19, 2012

Republican Reproductive Atrocities Just Keep on Coming

And murdering abortion docs isn't, right?
They simply won't stop. The Republican strutting brown-shirted storm trooper thugs, who populate general assemblies across the country, have come up with yet another way to harass women getting abortions. This time it's in Tennessee and it involves lists of names being made public so the anti-abortion fanatics can kill abortion providers and recipients. A gift to you from the Pro Life party.

That is, of course, an exaggerated (I hope) worst-case scenario, but it is hardly out of the question. Rep. Matthew Hill's (Jonesborough, site of the international Storytelling Festival) latest Republican atrocity is the "Life Defense Act," which like so many Republican atrocities has a distinct misnomer for a title.

Here's a report from the HuffingtonPost on the new bill (which follows an entire litany of assaults on individual rights by the party that considers itself anti-government):

"A new bill moving through the Tennessee House of Representatives would require the state to publish the names of each doctor who performs an abortion and detailed statistics about the woman having the procedure, which opponents worry will spur anti-abortion violence in the state.


"The Life Defense Act of 2012, sponsored by state Rep. Matthew Hill (R-Jonesborough), mandates that the Tennessee Department of Health make detailed demographic information about every woman who has an abortion available to the public, including her age, race, county, marital status, education level, number of children, the location of the procedure and how many times she has been pregnant. Each report would also have to include the name of the doctor who performed the procedure.

"Several health organizations, including the Tennessee Medical Association and Planned Parenthood, are concerned that the bill will make doctors and women vulnerable to attacks, especially considering the murder of Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas abortion provider, by an anti-abortion activist in 2009."

These people are extremists and murder is an extreme expression. I do not at all put it out of reach of the "Pro Life" gang that is pro-war, pro-death penalty, pro-gun, opposed to school lunch programs for poor children, opposed to health care for those who can't afford it ... It just never ends. But it will.

(Photo: blog.nj.com)

1 comment:

  1. Tennessee's and other state's need to shame women is symptomatic of a profound misunderstanding of the role and rule of law. This is especially disturbing when those weak minds are the law-makers.

    ReplyDelete