A Louisiana Senate committee voted 7-0 to ban all abortions with an exception to save the life of a mother. The bill, which was authored by Democratic Senator Ben Nevers, will go into effect only if the Supreme Court overturns Roe V. Wade. Democratic Senator Diana Bajoie said she wants to make the bill “more pro-life” by not allowing any exceptions:
She did not offer the amendment but served notice she will on the Senate floor, where Nevers is expected to take up the bill next week. “I do have some concerns about this bill,” Bajoie said. “It should be all or nothing…Life is life.”
Nevers said he will work with Bajoie to “get as much of a pro-life bill as I can.”
Nevers says the government should force young girls who are raped by a male relative to have his baby because “that child had nothing to do with that awful crime.”
Doctors who perform abortions would face a minimum of a year in jail and a maximum of 10 years, and a minimum fine of $1,000 and a maximum fine of $100,000. Women who seek abortions would not face criminal charges.
If you’d like to express your views to these “pro-life” Democratic Senaors before this law passes, contact:
Senator Ben Nevers: 225.342.2040
Senator Diana Bajoie: 225.342.0752
To contact all Louisiana State Senators, click here.
Louisiana has an extremely poor record on reproductive rights. NARAL Pro-Choice America gives it an F for the following reasons:
*92 percent of Louisiana counties have no abortion provider.
*The state has unconstitutional and unenforceable criminal bans on abortion.
*State law subjects women seeking abortions to biased counseling requirements and mandatory delays.
*Louisiana has an unconstitutional and unenforceable law mandating husband consent before a married woman may obtain an abortion.
*Louisiana prohibits the use of public facilities for the performance of abortions.
*Louisiana allows certain individuals or entities to refuse to provide women specific reproductive health services, information, or referrals.
Please pass this on to friends/family in Louisiana (I know they have enough to deal with already). This needs publicity before, not after the law passes!
Dammit all to hell..I’m sick of reading about so called democrats who say they are pro-life-who the hell isn’t ‘pro-life’….that is such a stupid ‘frame’ to hang your hat on. To my mind being pro-choice is pro-life period.
It seems I always stupidly assumed if you were a democrat that automatically made you pro-choice-that it was one of the bedrocks of the democratic platform. Now it seems we have so called ‘pro-life’ dems coming out of the freaken woodwork. WTF.
This whole subject becomes more hideous every day for women-having no choice is a complete subjugation of women pure and simple and makes us second class citizens..what’s next? Our voting rights taken away-told how to vote by husbands or if we don’t one we can’t vote at all..now please insert the word Fuck here and shout it several hundred times like I am. Doesn’t help much but I feel slightly better.
I watched “Iron Jawed Angels” last night…a movie based on a true story about the women who fought hard for the right to vote. It was incredibly inspiring. Then I think about how they’d feel if they were brought back to life today. It’s infuriating.
Check it out:
http://www.hbo.com/films/ironjawedangels/
I rented Angels awhile ago and keep meaning to get it out again. You’re right it was very inspiring and infuriating also. I knew a little about the struggle to get the ‘right’ to vote but this certainly crystalizes how hard the battle was to be ‘given’ to right to vote.
It does make me ashamed at how far we’ve come in such a short time to women not voting. It is just not part of the culture anymore to even want to be informed on what is happening, really happening in the country as far as what politicians are doing and voting on.
Again I can partially blame the media. I had a thought one time that local news stations should have a running news blurb on all broadcasts of who your governor is, who is the Lt. governor and your state senators etc…people might learn that simply by osmosis of seeing it daily and make them more connected to who is running their state thus maybe more likely to call or email, write letters to these people. Then again maybe not.
who will out these people for the hypocrites they are, who will point out that the people who propose anti-abortion legislation care nothing about living women and children since they don’t also propose additional funding for pre-natal care, childcare, paid parental leave, health care for children, low-cost housing ,etc.
Where are the politicians who will point out that the people who propose anti-abortion legislation don’t care if women face serious health threats, that they don’t care if women lose the ability to have children in the future because they’ve been forced to carry a non-viable fetus to term, that they don’t care if women and their children become homeless because they lose their jobs for missing work due to pregnancy-related problems.
Why the fuck do these hypocrites constantly get to stake false claims to high moral ground and never get called on it?
hi AndiF..you’re post is much more constructive than mine and asks all the right questions. Like you said don’t these ‘moralists’ think of the consequences to women and their families with their continuing hypocritical ‘pro-life'(may ass)stance?
Then again this really isn’t about the sanctity of life but domination of women due to so called religious views plus just plain faith-based meanness and stupidity.
One of the problems is that, especially in some regions, there’s hardly any difference between republicans and democrats. Republicans turn democrats and vice versa as long they can get the votes of the people on particular issue. If they believe that anti-choice will give them the edge in the elections I can see how they will change their position. Of course there are those hardcore die-hard fans of certain ideas who don’t actually care about the votes of the people but they are not that many…
It is important to know who is presssuring the representatives to vote like that on this issue. They certainly have reasons, and I doubt they voted for what they believe, so it will be interesting to know who is financing or in some other way pressuring their term.
Incredible. Why not decriminalize rape? They’re already determined to have victims suffer twice.
Great idea! They can call it Compassionate Courting, since she gets screwed by the system as well as the rapist.
That’s the one that makes a doctor liable for any damages caused by an abortion — including any damage to a fetus — for up to ten years after the procedure is performed.
But since providing abortion care is not a profession for cowards, it didn’t — and not one woman has ever used this law to file a suit against any doctor in Louisiana. A friend of mine who has a clinic there said that on the first day the law took effect, she explained its provisions to a patient. The woman just stared at her for a moment in disbelief, and then responded, “Well … duh.”
And we have called it the “Duh Law” ever since.