Behold the NC General Assembly(GA), an institution which has been hijacked by the Tea Party. In the latest affront to majority mainstream voters, yesterday the NC House of Delegates continued with its wrecking ball to the 20th and early 21st centuries. Under the guise of making abortion clinics “safer,” it came up with its own version of the NC Senate effort to shutter all but one women’s health clinics in North Carolina. Following the mocking the Senate took for restricting abortion as part of an anti-Sharia law bill, the House got a “better idea.” Essentially the HoD equated women with motorcycles. That’s right. To protect “these women” the haughty, arrogant, US Taliban tacked onto a motorcycle provision rules which essentially end the availability of abortion in NC. Also included in the legislation here is the following:
* They used many of the same clinic-rule-tactics used in Virginia in the past year. And then NC one-upped (or rather “7-upped”) Virginia.
* A doctor (not a physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner) must be physically present for the entire procedure.
*A doctor must be physically present with any patient who takes RU-486, the “abortion pill.” Originally, the HoD was going to require docs to be with the women for the entire pharmaceutically induced procedure, but that can take days. That maneuver was transparent and widely mocked for its outrageousness. Even this violates women’s privacy and severely limits its use.
* Inventing a problem which doesn’t exist, the HoD banned getting or providing an abortion for gender selection. (As if…anyone does that.)
* BUT, the above is really a back-door provision allowing the souse or father of the fetus to sue by falsely claiming gender selection was the motive for abortion. A spouse may sue a woman getting an abortion by claiming she got it because of the gender of the fetus. He can also sue the doctor. Previously the GA wanted to enable anyone in the immediate family to be able to sue. It is not clear in the legislation whether this is still possible.
* A woman must get an ultrasound, which usually means a trans-vaginal one;
* Anonymity is limited by this law for those patients who are sued.
*The coverage by insurance for abortions is limited. This includes anyone buying insurance on the state exchange, teachers, municipal workers and state employees.
The bill was not even available to the public before the three hour “debate” and vote. This is no way to run a state (or a country).
Don’t North Carolina Virginia! (See more about what NC has unleashed below the fold.)
Just 18 months ago it was unthinkable that one could write the headline above. North Carolina was a far more progressive state than Virginia. In Virginia we were all mocking and condemning Transvaginal Bob and the dangerously fanatical clown-for-an-AG, who has failed to do his real duties in favor of ramming a punitive and extremist agenda through the GA.
But then NC began following the marching orders of ALEC, Koch Brothers’ The American Legislative Exchange Council, which writes copycat legislation for the Tea Party takeover of the entire country.
And members of the GA see no irony in having passed this past week a Senate bill forbidding non-existent attempts at establishing “Sharia law.” And then these legislators again with no irony proceeded to drive NC further down the road to Sharia-like law.
They do all of this while pretending it isn’t about 1) sex; 2) control; 3) their own desire to procreate uninhibited by any woman and 4) the same fundamentalism they think they banned with their ban on “sharia law.” Look in the mirror, NC GA. Virginia, it can be worse. Don’t go there.
Work like hell to keep Ken Cuccinelli from the governor’s mansion and turn out of office Virginia’s own Taliban-like wrecking crew.
Note: I will post more in this series this weekend.
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