Nebraska Governor signs law that will torture women seeking abortions
Read Time:4 Minute, 47 Second
Republicans keep pushing the envelope. Encouraged by Tea Baggers and Hard Right cuckoos like Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck et al, executives nationwide are starting to challenge the narrowly defined Roe vs Wade. While certain to draw challenges, governors like Heineman know that this sort of legislation will endear them to their bases during a critical election year. No one think they really care what happens in 2011. It is all about politics. Read this story from the Associated Press:
Two landmark measures putting new restrictions on abortion became law in Nebraska on Tuesday, including one that critics say breaks with court precedent by changing the legal rationale for a ban on later-term abortions.
Republican Gov. Dave Heineman signed both bills, one barring abortions at and after 20 weeks of pregnancy and the other requiring women to be screened before having abortions for mental health and other problems. Both sides of the abortion debate say the laws are firsts of their kind in the U.S.
A national abortion rights group already appeared to be girding for a legal challenge, calling the ban after 20 weeks “flatly unconstitutional” because it is based on the assertion that fetuses feel pain, not on the ability of a fetus to survive outside the womb.
“It absolutely cannot survive a challenge without a change to three decades of court rulings,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Courts have been chipping away at abortion rights … this would be like taking a huge hacksaw to the rights.”
The law focusing on late-term abortions is designed to shut down one of the few doctors in the nation who performs them in Nebraska.
Set to take effect in October, it is based on the claim that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks. The current standard in abortion restrictions is viability, or when a fetus is able to survive outside the womb — generally at 22 to 24 weeks.
The law could lead to changes in state laws across the country if upheld by the courts, said Mary Spaulding Balch, legislative director for National Right to Life.
“It would broaden the interests of states in protecting the unborn child,” she said. “It says the state has an interest in the unborn child before viability.”
Heineman also signed the other bill, approved by lawmakers on Monday, that requires the screening for mental health problems and other risk factors indicating if women might have problems after having abortions.
The fetal-pain bill is partially meant to shut down Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who attracted attention after his friend and fellow late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot to death by an abortion foe in Kansas last year.
Kansas, worried that he might move there, has passed new bills that are awaiting action from Gov. Mark Parkinson, an abortion-rights Democrat. They would require doctors to list an exact medical diagnosis justifying a late-term abortion and also adjusts the definition of viability so that a fetus would be considered viable if there’s a “reasonable probability” it would survive outside the womb with life-sustaining measures such as an incubator.
Also, it codifies a state rule that the required second opinion on whether late-term abortions are necessary come from doctors in Kansas.
Attempts to restrict abortion across the country aren’t unusual — in Oklahoma, for example, new laws on abortions have been approved this year including a ban on abortions based on the gender of the child and tighter restrictions on the use of the RU-486 abortion pill.
South Dakota voters in 2006 and 2008 turned down proposals to ban abortion outright.
Nebraska’s law barring abortions after 20 weeks is sure to be challenged in court. Carhart has suggested he might do so. In January, he told The Associated Press, “they can pass any law they want to … and spend millions of dollars to go to court and lose.”
A spokesman for Carhart said this week that he has no plans to leave Nebraska, but is exploring his options and isn’t ruling out a move to Kansas.
The switch from viability to fetal pain in justifying abortion limits raises fresh legal issues.
Abortion opponents say a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a federal ban on certain late-term abortions opens the door for such legislation because it suggests states have an interest in protecting fetuses. They also say new studies and testimony from doctors prove fetuses feel pain at 20 weeks.
The argument used to justify the 20-week ban is based on the testimony of some doctors, some of it given during a 2005 congressional hearing. They contend there is substantial evidence that by 20 weeks, fetuses seek to evade stimuli in a way that indicates they are experiencing pain.
“The Nebraska Legislature has taken a bold step which should ratchet up the abortion debate across the nation,” Nebraska Right to Life director Julie Schmit-Albin said. “What we didn’t know in 1973 in Roe versus Wade … we know now.”
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, however, says it knows of no legitimate evidence that fetuses experience pain at that stage.
“There is certainly no solid scientific evidence establishing that a fetus can perceive pain at these earlier stages, so any court decisions to uphold such broader laws could only do so by disregarding the importance of good scientific evidence,” said Caitlin Borgmann, a law professor at The City University of New York.
The U.S. Supreme Court would have to overturn earlier abortion-related rulings to uphold the Nebraska law, Borgmann said, including a 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that upheld the right of women to have abortions before fetuses were viable.
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As despicable as this is, in the end it is another ploy by the right to pander to evangelicals. They don’t want abortion outlawed. They pull these stunts only to convince the religious zealots that they’re sincere.
Of course this will inconvenience many women who as far as I’m concerned should be allowed to mind their own business. Too bad they have to endure this in the name of a publicity stunt.
I don’t have as much problem with the 20 week rule as I do with the part requiring mental evaluation before a woman can get an abortion. Krell is right – that is the entire point of that part of the law – to instill even more embarrassment and humiliation (like those aren’t already part of the formula), therefore providing more deterrent to a woman even seeking out an abortion.
So, gee, I don’t suppose in those new laws they provided for increased birth rate, did they? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
..and that is why I restructured the headline Mrs. Bee…It is now torture. That should never be…
It is always interesting to me that the right wing nutters keep wanting the government out of the lives of individuals except on issues THEY think the government should intrude into peoples private lives. Idiots like to the think that state government is not government. If they ever get their way, will they ever be surprised!
The purpose of the mental health screening is to make it as embarrassing and emotionally painful experience before you even make it to the appointment.
If this passes any challenges, look for the next Fundamentalist politician running for election to try to top it, showing they are even more right with God (pronounced Gauuwd in Oklahoma).
Probably try to pass a law that the person will agree to tattoo a big scarlet “A” on their forehead.
Krell,
I hadn’t picked up on that, but it certainly makes sense-using the mental health screenings to further humiliate and intimidate an already frightened and possibly torn person.
Hypocritical bastards.
The Right never stops pushing an issue. They may lie low for awhile but you can never get them to move on. They don’t care about children-other than wanting them home schooled-and they don’t want to pay anything to support poor or deprived kids.
It’s all ideology with them. Nothing decent and nothing consistent, just ideology.
Chipping away at Roe v. Wade has been a past time of the righties for years. Perhaps in some States it might get to total prohibition. SCOTUS will say States rights, and do nothing. This has got to be made an election issue front and center.
I think it is outrageous and that if anyone needs a mental health eval, it is this idiot governor. My big fear is the newly politicized Supreme Court. Thanks for posting – maybe move it up to the top and leaving it there for awhile? A lot of people who have the rolling blogrolls will click on the topic rather than the blog name.
Moving it and changing headlines. This story is BIG!
Let’s say for the sake of argument that a fetus can feel pain. (Never mind that even an amoeba will move to avoid stimuli) Why not administer an anaesthetic to be sure this does not happen? That is the logical solution.
And what is the purpose of the mental health evaluation? If the woman proves to be a nutter, does that mean she will be granted permission for the abortion (one would hope!) If she proves to be mentally unhealthy, and that is grounds for making her continue the pregnancy, that is even worse. One can only conclude that the measure is only there to cause delays to beyond the point of a woman’s legal options.
This is a big deal. I am amazed there are no comments, then again, this is the slowest day we have seen since January.