Thursday, February 17, 2011



An incitement to murder

South Dakota has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in America. Because of Roe v Wade, abortion is legal - but only after women have been forced to attend counselling, wait 24 hours, view a sonogram of their fetus, and sit through an inaccurate anti-abortion lecture delivered by the doctor who is supposed to be helping them. The result is a service which is inaccessible in practice to women; there are no abortion providers in the state (Planned Parenthood flies one in), and women need to travel up to six hours if they need an abortion.

But all of that isn't enough, apparently, and so the Republican-dominated state legislature has hit on a new plan: make it legal to murder abortion providers:

A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state's GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.
This bill will pass the Republican-dominated House. It will pass the Republican-dominated Senate. The state's Republican Governor will sign it. And then some whack-job will use it as an excuse to murder someone. And all of those people will wring their hands and say "we never expected this", just like Sarah Palin never expected people to start shooting Democratic legislators she was putting on hitlists and sticking crosshairs on.

Its time we called them on this bullshit. What is going on here is an incitement to murder, using the state as its vehicle. And if the Republicans don't want to own their shit, then maybe they should stop doing it.