Draconian Abortion Bill is Back: Lawmakers Wage War on TN Women!

[Egalia]

The latest on the TN Abortion dramas is below; this is from my
blog. If you're from TN or just feel like emailing these
wackos, the hyper links are up there (url is below). After the
wackos passed the gay marriage ban, we thought we could rest
for a while. Tell me again, why do we need state legislators?
egalia  


The ACLU of Tennessee reports that the dangerous anti-choice
amendment is back. Last year the recurring-sponsor of this
amendment, extremist Sen. David Fowler (R-Signal Mountain),
withdrew the measure after it was amended. The radical senator
had a problem when his bill was amended to permit abortions
for women who have been raped, women who are victims of
incest, or women whose life is endangered.

Extremist Sen. Fowler believes in forced maternity with no
exceptions. No doubt he also supports visitation rights for
rapists. Gee, Sen. Fowler, do you really want all the loonies
who can’t get a child the normal way to come to Tennessee for
a little rape and procreation? Do you have a daughter? A wife?
A mother? Are you human? I don’t think so.

Last year, Sen. Rosalind Kurita was one of 17 Democrats to
vote for a woman’s right to refuse to reproduce her rapist.
Yeah, we have a few women lawmakers here in the right-wing
male dominated state of Tennessee, a very few. Women are 17%
of the General Assembly, and that’s the all time high. 

Fifty-three percent of adult Tennesseans are illiterate. Our
school system is one of the worst in the nation. The Governor
is trying to cut 323,000 people from the state’s healthcare
plan for the poor, the disabled and the elderly; the sickest
are to be cut first! And what are the idiots in charge up to?

The idiots in charge are approving specialty license plates
guaranteed to get the dirt-poor state sued, again. They are
debating (and I use the term loosely) gay adoption bans,
abortion bans, gay foster-parenting bans. They've passed a gay
marriage ban and they generally appear to be having a gay old
time.

A number of them don’t seem to understand the point of an
education, so they don’t waste much time on that issue. One of
their perks is healthcare benefits for life, so that’s not one
of their big issues either.

If they weren’t brain damaged, they might know that
governments can push people only so far before all hell breaks
loose.

The proposed amendment, SJR127, would strip the guarantee of
abortion rights from the state’s constitution, with no
exceptions! It’s on the agenda for the Senate Judiciary
Committee this coming Tuesday (4-5-05) at 3:30. Be there!

Tennessee Guerilla Women
http://guerillawomentn.blogspot.com/2005/04/draconian-abortion-ban-is-back.html

[Tux]

1. I like Nashville

But after the elections, it feels tense especially to non-Christians. It's like they are looking for a person to harass. I hope it gets better and I can convince my gf to avoid a trip to Nashville to this calms down.

[iverglas]

2. let's hear from some of those "pro-life Democrats"

Reports like this, in this forum, don't seem to garner too much comment from them. How about it?

What does a "pro-life Democrat" think about legislative initiatives like this one?

The proposed amendment, SJR127, would strip the guarantee of abortion rights from the state’s constitution, with no exceptions!

I guess one might ask, more generally, what a Democrat thinks about a legislative initiative that is so blatantly a violation of the constitution of the US, as that constitution has been interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States whose job it is to do such things.

Once they've got on with the business of stripping their state constitution of the guarantee in the US Constitution of women's right not to be deprived of life or liberty without due process, I wonder when one can expect to see a legislator in one of these states introducing an amendment to the state's constitution to strip it of the guarantee of rights set out in, oh, the 13th Amendment ...


(edited to fix missing word)

[iverglas]

5. waiting and hoping to hear ...

Shouldn't there be an outbreak of applause somewhere in the vicinity?

This legislator is proposing to amend its constitution to eliminate the right to an abortion -- and one might expect the proposal to receive a good deal of support among other legislators, I gather. This would open the door to the state enacting whatever restrictions on abortion it likes.

(Or so some legislators in said backwoods/wards state apparently thinks, anyhow. Or so said legislators would like some of their constituents out in those backwoods to think, even if the legislators know it's bullshit because state constitutions can't, I think, override the US Bill of Rights.)

Isn't this what a "pro-life Democrat" would like to happen??

(My apologies to all "pro-life *and* pro-choice" Democrats, who do not seek to have laws made to force anyone else to live the way they want them to, or punish them for failing to do so. I use the term "pro-life Democrat" to mean "anti-choice Democrat", an oxymoron to my mind anyhow, but in any event a term that is unlikely to garner responses from the target audience.)

What DOES a "pro-life Democrat" think about all this? Won't even one tell us?

[iverglas]

3. the text

"Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to abortion or the funding thereof."
http://www.ppaction.org/ppmet/alert-description.tcl?alert_id=2500006

I'm sure one may look forward to seeing

"Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to buy groceries or the funding thereof."

"Nothing in this Constitution secures or protects a right to have a kidney transplant or the funding thereof."

What I do find disappointing:

"Constitutional Amendment could restrict Tennesseans' privacy!!"
http://www.ppaction.org/ppmet/alert-description.tcl?alert_id=2466010

is this focus on "privacy", not to mention the suggestion that this initiative would make it possible to "restrict" it. Makes it sound like it's going to allow wire-tapping or something.

A constitutional amendment that opens the door to legislation to prohibit abortion is a direct assault on women's right not to be deprived of life or liberty without due process of law, and of course not to be denied the equal protection of the laws. A loss of "privacy" is really pretty trivial compared to brain damage or paralysis from a stroke during pregnancy ... or a lifetime of the psychological, economic and social disadvantage that forced childbearing can lead to ...

[Egalia]

4. Privacy

Iverglas, I agree, it annoys me no end. I understand that 'privacy' is the legal principal involved rather than 'equality' which would have been preferable, but 'privacy' just doesn't get it. I think the media and many others prefer to use the term 'privacy' because they're scared of the word 'abortion.' Here in the South, we're scared of a lot of words.

[Scout]

6. do you think that instead of or in addition to privacy....

the right to not be enslaved could have been used to secure reproductive rights? is "enforced pregnancy continuation" a form of slavery? I think it is, but we all know that my opinion is not significant justification for laws.

Not sure I'm explaining this correctly, but I think you get my drift anyway.