One branch of North Dakota’s legislature just passed a bill that would not only outlaw abortion, but define life as beginning at conception. According to RH Reality Check, legal experts generally believe that defining a fertilized egg as a human being would impact access to both emergency and regular hormonal contraception—both of which can cause fertilized eggs to fail to implant in the uterus. It would also affect in vitro fertilization. And, of course, it would have the effect of outlawing abortion.
Other anti-choice bills under consideration in North Dakota would require the state’s only abortion clinic to post signs outside its door informing patients that no one can force a woman to have an abortion; and a requirement that abortion providers read a statement to women saying that the procedure “will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”
Oh my fucking god. “Terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being”?! My whole body just shivered.
So it passed? That’s it? Over and done with? Abortion is legally murder in the entire state of North Dakota? Fuuuuuck.
I think I would probably go insane if I had to live there too…
Ahh – compare and contrast this with the Right’s talking-point that socialize medicine will lead to the government interfering with your health-care.
It’d be funny if they weren’t so dangerous.
Thank God I have been saving all those dry cleaning hangers for all these years. Now I know where I can donate them.
Sorry ladies that North Dakota hates you.
“separate”? apparently, they don’t even know where a zygote or fetus resides.
They’re desperate for attention, that’s what’s wrong with them.
That and they think women are less than fully human.
@1– So far it’s only passed the house, not the senate. I’m not that in-tune with ND politics to know what kind of chance it has of making it through the senate or whether or not the governor would veto said legislation. (Any SLOG-reading ND political insiders out there?? 😉
Also– This bill *could* equate a miscarriage with manslaughter. Basically, any sexually active woman would have to assume that she is pregnant or risk being accused of inadvertently ending a life.
Overall, it sounds like its just a round-about way to get an abortion case to the supreme court.
what’s really annoying is that the crazies in the legislature KNOW that this bill will be immediately struck down, and will have not real effect on reality. BUT, when the law is tossed, they can rally around activist judges usurping the will of the people and yadda yadda yadda.
This is going to be a tough battle for pro-choice groups. Bush et al have stuffed the court system with anti-choice judges and they’d love to see Roe vs Wade challenged in the Supreme Court. It’s going to cost a lot of money to fight this and that money comes from people like you. If you are planning to make any donations, consider Planned Parenthood in North Dakota.
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/mn-nd-s…
Is it possible to demote a state to “territory” or something? Or, heck, just force them to secede?
Lee, I don’t know about you, but I would be happy to trade ND for Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands… heh.
North Dakota is not unique. Most of the south would have active legislation like this in place if it weren’t for Roe v. Wade. And had we elected McCain, the filled vacancies on the supreme court would have let it be overturned too.
If the Christian right ever did win that battle, they wouldn’t stop there. The precious few defenses we have from our country becoming a theocracy are alarmingly delicate. We aren’t all that different from Iran.. just a different brand of fundamentalism with popular political support.
“would impact access to both emergency and regular hormonal contraception—both of which can cause fertilized eggs to fail to implant in the uterus.”
-Of course, this is just a theoretical possibilty, as it has never been scientifically proven to actually happen. And yet, the right-wing has managed to twist birth control into abortion based on this unproven assumption.
I suppose you could say theoretically a woman jumping up and down at the moment the egg goes to attach might prevent it and thus we should ban women from phsycial activity after sex because of the hypothetical assumption they could have just “ended a life”?
What’s the matter with North Dakota?
Simple.
Everyone there is pretty old, and only really old religious folks are still there.
Hence, it’s a state full of nutjobs.
Something just like this failed miserably at Colorado’s ballot in 2008.
I guess it’s a good thing only 13 people live in North Dakota.
Will, that’s just not true: North Dakota’s age spread is just about the national average. And although historically there has been emigration of college graduates and young(er) educated people, that is changing (e.g. Fargo, where the tech industry is really warming up because labor and property costs are so much lower than here).
I have no problem with the signs. Planned Parenthood pressures young women to abort on a regular basis and they’re constantly breaking the law by not reporting statuary rapes to law enforcement, thereby perpetuating the cycle of child abuse.
@15 – yeah, but that’s Colorado. Significant % of sane folks to balance out the crazy ones.
@16 – is that counting all the whole, separate, unique, living human beings who might have come into existence since yesterday’s Happy Hour?
the last sentence is a little accurate… if you added “in nine months if taken care of properly
@18:
So how does aborting a rape-induced pregnancy perpetuate the cycle of child abuse?
If anything it would stop it.
@18-Bullshit. I’ve known several Planned Parenthood councilors and they never pressure anyone. A lot of women and girls come in and say “I want an abortion.” and they don’t try to talk them out of it, and why should they?
As for reporting statutory rape, they follow the same ethical guidelines as other health care professionals.
@18, Yes, just recently I got an unsolicited phone call from Planned Parenthood asking me if I would consider getting an abortion – just for fun!
Barney Frank once commented, referring to anti-choice Republicans, that “conservatives believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth.”
that would make us all slightly older, which means we can get our Social Security checks 9 months early! What else can I do with this newfound 9 months of age?
I think this is a good time to take a firm stance against the rape of statues. Who’s with me?
If a pregnant woman travels overseas, does the fertilized egg need a passport?
Good grief this is dumb ND.
dangerkitty @7 makes a very good point –
if you miscarry because you weren’t strict enough about following the healthy pregnancy guidelines (lifted a heavy box? got in a hot tub? ate unpasteurized cheese? ran too hard on the treadmill?) can you be considered criminally liable? what lengths can the state go to to prove you were at fault? can the state then be proactive and monitor you throughout your pregnancy to make sure that you don’t do anything that might be a danger to your whole separate unique living human being? can they come into your home and remove all the scissors because you might get a sudden urge to run with them?
this is an extremely dangerous proposal. of course, for that reason, it will likely never succeed but it infuriates me that there are those out there who would have it that way and are actively trying to make it so.
Obviously ND needs to mandate monthly ovulation checks for all women to instantly identify any who have become pregnant so they can be confined to their father’s or husband’s homes for the pregnancy, to safeguard the infantz.
Abortion is a necessity, religion is not. Outlaw religion.
Well I suppose after the first 4 women who misscarry get locked up all other women there will insist on using protection to avoid the possibility of putting themselves at risk of incarceration should anything bad happen during a pregnancy. Then no more children will be born in ND and it will just wither and die. Give it back to the prairie dogs.
@26 FTW. Let’s get a petition going.
Yaaaaaaay!! Finally the other Dakota is making itself look fucking retarded!
Sorry Kesh, I’m all for raping statues. In fact, I’m making that #3 on my list of favorites (right behind bicycles and picnic tables).
@18: Please tell me you are joking. My sarcasm meter must be off today.
@28: As long as they are barefoot and in the kitchen, no harm should come to the ” whole, separate, unique, living human being”. Can’t have the women’s workin. It aint gud fir dem.
#27, it’s a little lame to only include fertilized eggs here. I say the next slogan should be “Menstruation is murder!”
Also, one of my dear friends is from Fargo. I blame him for this.
Until recently, I lived my whole life in South Dakota. I’d say, based on experience, that South Dakota is as conservative as North Dakota, if not more. South Dakota tried to pass something like this in the last two elections. It was narrowly defeated in 2004, and struck down in state legislature in 2008. Keep in mind that South Dakota only has ONE clinic, with ONE doctor who performs abortions ONE day a week. I really really don’t think this will pass. Women who want abortions will just go to Minnesota or Canada if this passes. It’s not going to prevent anyone from getting an abortion. Ridiculous.
What a bullshit bill. North Dakota lawmakers are pushing intentionally idiotic legislation they know to be unconstitutional so they can take their shot at Roe v. Wade.
This bill means:
A pregnant woman who discovers she has cancer could be denied chemotherapy and radiation since both could be lethal to her fetus. She would have two options: hang around for months idly watching her cancer metastasize, or treat it and face manslaughter charges.
Any woman who miscarries – no matter how desperately she wanted the baby – would become a potential criminal and a potential crime scene.
I very much doubt the ND conservative base cares much about the women in those two scenarios (and has probably convinced themselves that abortions-for-convenience happen all the time but cancer and infertility are too rare to factor into legislation) so there’s this fun point to consider:
The bill says, The state shall naturalize all preborn persons and shall afford to them all the privileges and immunities of state citizenship guaranteed in section 21 of article I of the Constitution of North Dakota, except that the state is not required to include preborn children in state and local censuses.
Ergo, anyone conceived in North Dakota would be a US citizen. You don’t even need to be born in the USA any more! any dirty foreigner who does it in Dakota can claim welfare, Head Start, and unemployment for their free-loading foreign baby.
Smoke that, conservative assholes.
The scary thing, Tiktok, is that you are joking but the pro-lifers say crazy shit like that and they aren’t joking. For example, a common criticism of Planned Parenthood is that they promote contraception methods that dont work so that they can make a profit from abortions. I’m not joking – the pro-lifers really think that. Totally fucked in the head.
It may not even be constitutional and will fail a court challenge. The definition of a human being and rights pertaining thereto has a lot of case law behind it.
As if we needed any further demonstration of the fact that in our supposedly egalitarian age, fat old white self-righteous misogynist good ol’ boys still run the world from some bizarre headspace that only tangentially touches reality…
@18
Have you ever been to a planned parenthood or is your experience with it what some bible beater told you? PP doesn’t force anyone to do anything they do not want. PERIOD. You’re probably the same person that thinks all PP does is hand out abortions.
@35
raindrop isn’t joking. raindrop also thinks Obama not wearing a suit jacket in the oval office is akin to drinking malted beverages and sagging ones pants.
I like to think of raindrop as slog’s very own town idiot.
This bill would be dead in the water if it were passed but as 7 noted, it’s probably intended to go to the supreme court as giving zygotes the same rights as people is like opening a pandora’s box full of ridiculous legal issues.
So if I have a couple of fertilized embryos in a ND fertility clinic, can I claim them as dependents come April 15th?
Uh, @35, have you read many of raindrop’s posts? I’m nearly certain he was not being sarcastic.
@43: You’re a dick.
At least Raindrop has the cojones to use the same name on all his posts.
I just want to come to the defense of North Dakota here for a moment.
Our forefathers split the Dakota Territory in the wrong direction. Rather than splitting it east-west to make North and South Dakota, they should have split it at the Missouri River to make East Dakota and West Dakota. East Dakota is a lot like Minnesota- moderate, Lutheran, and Scandinavian. West Dakota is like a poorer, more reactionary version of Wyoming or Montana- people whose ancestors moved west a hundred years ago, found all the good land (in MN and eastern Dakotas) taken, were forced into shit jobs sucking at the teat of the Federal government, and have had a hate/hate relationship ship with their benefactors ever since.
Without farm subsidies, eastern Montana and the western Dakotas would absolutely be the poorest counties in America- less than $15,000/yr for a family of four is the average (again, before farm subsidies, which they have over their West Virginia brethren.) There’s a reason the Feds gave pieces of this land to the Lakota- (almost) nobody else wanted it.
None of this excuses the North Dakota Legislature from the scorn they are now receiving. But understanding is the first step to change.
“So if I have a couple of fertilized embryos in a ND fertility clinic, can I claim them as dependents come April 15th?”
That is an INCREDIBLE idea.
Freeze some embryos, file your taxes using them as dependents. You don’t have to buy them clothing, food, or anything else and you get a nice fat tax break.