NPR host Dee Dee Bridgewater recounts her own experience with illegal abortion

Women don’t abort because of some sort of whim. They abort because they feel they have no other choice. The fact that they’d risk their lives to do it should be proof enough of that.

[via ThinkProgress]

SCOTUS turns away Oklahoma ultrasound law

Los Angeles Times: For the second time in two weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court has let stand a ruling that strikes down a major abortion regulation from Oklahoma.

The justices on Tuesday turned down the state’s attempt to reinstate a law that would have required pregnant women to undergo an ultrasound test and hear about the size and possible heartbeat of the fetus.

Last year, the Oklahoma Supreme Court struck down the state’s ultrasound law on the grounds it put an undue burden on a woman’s right to abortion.

This is what always gets me; the extremely weak and stupid rationale for these sorts of laws. “State Atty. Gen. Scott Pruitt appealed and argued the law was needed to ensure women were ‘fully informed’ before they opted for abortion,” according to the report.

Just once I’d like to see one of these clowns asked point blank what they think it is that most women don’t understand about pregnancy. What Pruitt’s argument — and that of every “informed consent” spin doctor out there — boils down to is an argument that women are too stupid to know what they’re doing, so they need a helpful Republican male politician to draw them a damned picture with a sonogram.

It’s not just an unnecessary burden, it’s an insulting one, as well.

Wisconsin Gov. Walker joins War on Women

ThinkProgress: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has thrown his support behind an anti-abortion measure that’s currently moving through the state legislature, saying he will sign the bill into law if it makes it to his desk. SB 206 would require women to undergo an ultrasound before getting an abortion — which would mandate an invasive transvaginal probe for some of the women who seek early abortions in their first trimester — and force one of the state’s last abortion clinics to close its doors.

“I don’t have any problem with ultrasound,” Walker told reporters on Tuesday in Milwaukee. “I think most people think ultrasounds are just fine.”

Forced ultrasound bills mandate a medically unnecessary procedure that would otherwise be left up to the discretion of a woman and her doctor. Medical experts, including the largest national group representing thousands of OB-GYNs across the country, are opposed to this type of legislation because they say it interferes with their work and compromises their relationships with patients. “All of a sudden, the Senate is full of doctors,” Wisconsin Sen. Tim Cullen (D) said in reference to SB 206's advancement.

You know, I would very much like Scooter to explain to me exactly what it is that women supposedly don’t know about their pregnancies. What new information would an ultrasound give them? What bit of ignorance about their own bodies is this supposed to clear up? Be specific please: just how incredibly stupid do you anti-choicers believe that women are?

The truth is that they’re simply a roadblock to getting an abortion; just one more hoop to jump through, in the hopes that some women will think it’s not worth the effort. In short, the explanation for why this unnecessary procedure should be required are lies. As always, the most fanatically religious among us are the biggest liars and the least trustworthy Americans.

Of course, this is just Walker’s way of shoring up his conservative bona fides before a possible presidential run. He’s hoping that attacking women will excite the base enough to look past his inexcusably gross economic incompetence. But if we’ve learned one thing in recent years, it’s that this War on Women stuff may get you through the GOP primaries, but that this level of extremism will keep you out of the White House.

And thank goodness for that. Scott Walker is unfit to lead a sing-along, let alone a nation.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]