Language Police

You know how sometimes you read a story and you honestly can’t believe that you’re not reading it in The Onion? This is one of those stories.

A bill approved by the Missouri Senate (which still has to pass the House, where it will hopefully be voted down, if there are any reasonable people left in Missouri) adds to Missouri’s existing policy that no public money can be used to fund abortions an additional rule prohibiting state aid to hospitals, clinics, and counselors who even utter the word “abortion.” (Emphasis mine.)

The bill sends state government snooping into places where women have a reasonable expectation of privacy. It sets an impossible-to-monitor standard for what doctors and other health care providers can and cannot say, which intrudes on their obligation to provide essential information about safe, legal medical options for their patients. And it creates cumbersome audit requirements that will add to health care costs and require a larger state bureaucracy.

Hospitals, clinics, rape crisis lines and domestic violence counselors would be audited every three years to make sure they don't mention abortion or answer patients' questions about how to obtain it. Those affiliated with abortion providers would face annual audits.

The bill is sponsored by state Sen. John Loudon, R-Ballwin, who insists that it's designed to "enhance safety."

In reality, however, and in spite of Senator Loudon’s insistence, it’s designed to enhance the state’s ability to withhold information about a procedure, which is both safe and legal, that would enable them to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. And since it applies only to state-funded hospitals, clinics, and counselors, it specifically targets poor women. Additionally, the bill demands more stringent requirements for doctors who perform abortions:

Most outpatient surgery centers have arrangements with local hospitals to take patients who suffer surgical complications. But Mr. Loudon's bill goes well beyond that, to require that doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic. In Missouri, there now are only three places where abortions are performed: Columbia, St. Louis and Springfield. This bill will reduce the number of doctors who can perform abortions, which is exactly what it's designed to do. But it won't necessarily reduce the already low rate of complications.

Delaying access and gagging health care providers means women will be further along in their pregnancies when they finally get an abortion. That alone increases the risks. And the bill prohibits any abortion provider from distributing sex education material to public school students. Without access to comprehensive sexual education, young people are more likely to have unprotected intercourse, which results in unintended pregnancies.

Ironically, many of the legislators who supported this glorified gag rule also voted to cut subsidies to parents who adopt through the foster care system, and health care to disabled and elderly state residents.

The number of instances we’ve seen in state governments trying to do end-runs around the protections afforded women by Roe v. Wade have been steadily increasing—and getting ever bolder—since the moment Bush strode into office, trumpeting his moral values and his love of Jesus. His alliance with the Dominionists and the alleged mandate they gave him in return have encouraged exactly this kind of anti-choice, anti-woman legislation, and while Bush and his wife blather on about how much they do to free women from tyranny around the world, here at home his devotees do everything in their power to turn women’s bodies into slaves of the state.