Last month, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signed a law requiring doctors at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges in a local hospital. Mississippi has one clinic left, where, because of the state's anti-abortion climate, they commute to work from Alabama. It's no secret that Mississippi Republicans, in particular, are delighted by the prospect that they might put the state's one and only clinic out of business.
Mississippi State Representative Bubba Carpenter, speaking to the Alcorn County GOP on Thursday, said as much:
"We have literally stopped abortion in the state of Mississippi. Three blocks from the Capitol sits the only abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi. A bill was drafted. It said, if you would perform an abortion in the state of Mississippi, you must be a certified OB/GYN and you must have admitting privileges to a hospital. Anybody here in the medical field knows how hard it is to get admitting privileges to a hospital...
"It's going to be challenged, of course, in the Supreme Court and all -- but literally, we stopped abortion in the state of Mississippi, legally, without having to-- Roe vs. Wade. So we've done that. I was proud of it. The governor signed it into law. And of course, there you have the other side. They're like, 'Well, the poor pitiful women that can't afford to go out of state are just going to start doing them at home with a coat hanger.' That's what we've heard over and over and over.
"But hey, you have to have moral values. You have to start somewhere, and that’s what we've decided to do. This became law and the governor signed it, and I think for one time, we were first in the nation in the state of Mississippi."
I got a chance to ask Representative Carpenter about the coat hanger part today. "That was what a lot of our critics on the House floor said during the debate," he told me. "That was just some language that some of the African-Americans used." A few white Democrats also spoke out about the old "home remedies," he remembered, but in the end the measure passed with support from several Democrats.
The owner of the state's lone clinic says she'll sue to block the law, which takes effect July 1, if her doctors can't get admitting privileges. Tonight on the show, yet more anti-abortion legislation in the states.
(The video above comes by way our pal James Carter. You can see a slightly longer version on the Alcorn County GOP's channel.)
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How many of these ' pro life ' zealots who would kill other human beings to protect the life of zygotes and embryos EVER :
Fought to end wards that kill people who are already born ?
Fought to get illegals guns off the streets that kill people who are already born ?
Fought to get corporations to stop selling drugs that kill people who are already born ?
Fought to change or dismantle job sites that kill people who are already born ?
Fought to help end domestic violence that kills people who are already born ?
The Pro Life movement has NEVER been about protecting life. It was, is now and will always be ANTI-WOMEN'S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS !!
It's too HARD to care about people and children already here because THAT requires REAL action.
The only manufacturer of coat hangers in Mississippi, a long time Republican, is thrilled with the legislation and has quadrupled the price of his product.
He was quoted as saying-"got my moneys worth out of that bribe,er contribution"
Well played, sir, well played.
And these people talk "MORAL VALUES", really? The best part of him was probably swallowed by Mum, too bad she didn't take it all.....
I like how he referenced 'moral values' (btw, what a hideous construction that is) right after his flippant bit on coat hangers. And, by 'like' I mean I detested it and the man who said it. What is he telling us, really? That the price of morality is to paid by women butchering themselves for things that clinical procedures should address? If that's his idea of moral, I'm uncomfortable being in the same galactic cluster as him.
Looking at abortions per 1000 we see that nations w/ restricted abortion laws or that flat out outlaw abortion typically have a higher amount of abortions being performed than nations w/ lax abortion laws/common access to clinics that perform abortions. We also see this in the states: states that have more constrained abortion laws have higher rates of abortion and states that have more lax/common access clinics have less abortions.
This is not to say that one directly correlates w/ the other. So in other words I am not arguing that if you make tons of PP centers that this will magically cause the abortion rate to go down. Now I am not trying to argue here that the two are inversely correlated. I'm not arguing that if you suddenly put a PP center in every neighborhood abortion will cease to exist; to me that would be an imprudent thing to argue since these conclusions are based on correlational data and correlation does not equal causality. However what it DOES tell us is that in no instance does the abortion rate cease to exist or even substantially decline when abortion is outlawed or greatly, greatly restricted. This does not necessarily mean that I am arguing that it will go up, but rather that the rate change is negligible. You might see a change from 65 per 1,000 to 60 per 1,000. But what we also know is that whenever abortion is grossly restricted or flat out banned the death toll of women goes up to about 14%. So any gain one could argue you achieve from outlawing abortion is immediately canceled out by the loss in adult women seeking backroom abortions or attempting to carry pregnancies to term that end up killing them.
Some people have already touched on this so I'll be brief (if I can even be such a thing):
Abortions have not been stopped in the state of Mississippi. There is no way to stop abortions. The rate of abortions have also not gone down. What this means is that women are still having abortions who live in Mississippi, but they are either going out of state or performing them off the books. Abortions will still be performed in emergency situations if a woman is taken to an ER so we also have these forms of abortions.
I also want to encourage everyone to read Freakanomics or watch the video (you can watch it online on Netflix if you have a subscription). Basically what you need to understand is that the crime rate is affected by accessibility to abortion. The more it's restricted the more violent a society becomes and the higher the systemic poverty rate is. The mental illness rate also increases as well as the disability rate. I am very worried that in another 10 years we're going to see the outcome of this legislation and it's going to result in the same style crime sprees we saw occurring in the 1980's.
How is his statement here not prima facie evidence of undue burden?
People better get involved in local elections or the states will become religious dictatorships and voting rights will be forfeited.
So as the desperate woman who's been denied access to birth control and can barely feed the children she already has bleeds out on the bathroom floor, at least her soul will be pure when she reaches the Gates of Heaven.
This is one I won't be sharing with $HERSELF. She was working in hospitals before Roe v Wade and saw firsthand what happens when desperate women can't get safe legal abortions.
Just more discounting of the lives of women. Women are going to have to stand together for their rights, or they will find themselves under the boot of the oppressor, who cares not a whit for their lives. Women have to vote!! If all the women eligible to vote in Mississippi (and in the USA) would vote, there would be no problem in protecting rights. Vote!!
'But hey'...no war on women HERE. We're just gonna have us some moral values. Geezzzzzzzz. And then they are OFFENDED when the the NC Governor says 'you've made us Mississippi'...uh huh.
While I was doing some genealogy research, I discovered that my great-grandmother died in 1898 following her attempt to perform a home abortion. She simply could not afford another child. Her death broke up her family, and two of her children -- including my grandmother -- were placed in a foster home. A third child ran away from the foster home, and ended up in Canada.
I'm not sure if anyone else in the family knows how she died. We were always told that she died of rheumatic fever.
She was not a poor black woman from Mississippi. She was a poor white, Irish Catholic immigrant living in Chicago. Not that it makes any difference.
I wonder if Bubba Carpenter would like to sit down with my family and talk about this, and "moral values."
I'm sorry this happened to your great grandmom. I'm very sorry this is going to happen again to women in 2012.
Insurance companies have never wanted to pay for abortions, but have always wanted to charge the same insurance price to cover them anyway.
Ultra-sounds, prior to abortions, are standard medical procedures to certify how old the fetus is and what position the fetus is in for removal. (Republicans want to make it a law that a woman has to look at the image of the ultra sound, without any proper enforcement, which doctors have never denied women to do anyway.) Therefore, this procedure will cost insurance companies money anyway, but they may want to encourage women to change their minds about abortions.
Prescription insurance companies, including those financailly affiliated with the Catholic Church, do not want to pay for birth control.
If a pregnant woman gets into a car accident in Mississippi and needs an abortion to save her life, a hospital will perform the abortion for her. What does this Governor mean he has stopped abortions in the State of Mississippi? That is like Mitt Romney saying that he saved Detroit.
The Miss. legislature should be held legally responsible for every death of a woman or child due to the legislated lack of appropriate medical care in the state.
And while they are being held responsible for the damage their zealotry brings down upon the lives of women and children, they should be held responsible for illegally shoving their Religious-Fanaticism upon others. No one is forcing them to have an abortion but they are forcing others to NOT have an abortion. WRONG !!
No more fanatical, fascistic thinking ! Magic is the least of our worries.
In similar news, Jan "Mind Lock" Brewer has signed into law a bill allowing businesses to omit coverage of contraception in their health insurance plans. But rest assured that there is no Republican war on women (not intended to be a factual statement).
Great report/interview on this tonight. These bits of legislation are getting out of control, and oddly enough (not really) when you read about the authors of the bills, they all seem to come up on the list of ALEC members. That's DEFINITELY the case in Kansas.
Gross
It is undeniable that women have the right to abort their pregnancy and It is ridiculous to legislate what women do with their bodies. On the other hand abortion is not good for women on many levels. The latter, is dismissed too quickly by people like Rachel Maddow. This is ignorant and promotes a narrow minded perspective.
Lots of things aren't good for you. Don't like them? Don't do them. It's not narrow-minded, it's the difference between the truth and being "@!$%#ing stupid". Especially since all of the so-called "negative effects" of abortion are, not surprisingly, made up or based on bad science.
But, people like you have no problem with bad science. We should "teach the controversies" of global warming and evolution too, right? Complete and utter bull@!$%#.
It's not Rachel Maddow's job to tell women that abortion may or may not be the best choice for them. She reports on politics--brilliantly. I doubt that "people like Rachel Maddow" (meaning, I guess...brilliant...?) "dismiss quickly" the complexities surrounding a woman facing the subject of abortion. I certainly don't.
Whether or not to continue a pregnancy is a HUGE and complex subject, and it's a decision that an adult needs to make for herself. And every woman's body and life and situation is different. If you're worried about her, tell her what you think. Make all the information available to her and then let HER decide. Nobody else.
And don't dismiss the horrific reality of unsafe self-induced abortions. Making abortion illegal doesn't make it go away. Nobody has an abortion for fun. Women desperately need control over their lives and over how many children they have, and women will always desperately do whatever they have to for that.
No it's not. To the extent that abortion is "not good" for women, who is better qualified to explain that not-goodness: her doctor, or an ignorant fanatic like Bubba Carpenter? And who has the right to decide whether she will go through with the abortion despite the threatened not-goodness: the woman herself, or Bubba Carpenter?
Legal abortion is "better" and safe than childbirth. I forget what our rate is, but in Afghanistan, it's one maternal death per six births. And most of the "evidence" that it's bad for women is bogus.
While many of the commonly advertised negative effects are debatable, it's not to say that abortion is without side effects.
Speaking from the experience of a friend who had one less than a year ago, it's a traumatic experience from an emotional perspective, even though she knew for a fact that it would be impossible for her to care for the child. (I won't give context out of respect for her). Additionally, there is a lower chance of getting pregnant in the future after an abortion (I don't know the rate of the decline, and obviously in many individuals this will not make much difference).
That said, and as is the case with many things and as said previously by others, making something illegal doesn't make it disappear, it just makes it illegal. It'll still happen, but generally in secret, and certain in less safe conditions.
Furthermore, why does an embryo or fetus - pre-nervous development, I want to make that clear so my stance is not misunderstood - take precedence over other lives? Why does it take precedence over the life of the woman carrying it in cases where only one of the two would survive? Why would birth be forced in conditions where the mother or family (let's not assume that all cases are even couples, but neither assume that none are) would be unable to care for the newborn child? They would be forced into a situation where their choice is to starve or be given up to a foster home?
This whole campaign is completely ridiculous. I honestly don't know how else to qualify it.
@P. Rhi
Rachel is an anchor of a political commentary show, not a reporter and there are better ways for women to control "how many children they have". Clearly you and many others are very self-conscious about this issue. Because for some reason you ignore that I affirmed that is a woman's right to decide. I see this as an inherent part of life, though it is not fair for the child. It still comes down to being the mother's decision.
This is a very disappointing video and that guy is a narrow minded troll.
What is truly shocking about this state of affairs is that the relatively better off can fly to the venue of their choice for a discreet abortion while the poorer are unable to. So, abortions continue but not in their backyard. It is hypocrisy writ large.
OMG - I don't mean to sound so "promotional", but you need to read my debut novel called "EQUITY of EVIL". This is a medical thriller based on true events, that depicts a new global business that promotes a revolutionary unique method of abortion. This bold, controversial novel is going to stir things up politically and socially! www.rudymazzocchi.com - Its one of those books that NEEDS to be read!
Damn it, I hate OMG in comment section advertisements for books. What's next? "Squee I got money"?
"But hey, you have to have moral values."
Good idea, Bubba. Let us know when you find some yourself.
Just f-ng Brilliant.
What year is this? F-ing Brilliant. November.
The Mississippi situation described here is terrible and Bryant and Carpenter should all be tossed out on their asses...
And I know this is a totally ridiculous question and solution, but what would it take for an abortion clinic to become a small, but real hospital, with say, two beds, and whose admitting doctors were the abortion doctors?
Because if that was any sort of possibility, I would contribute $25 to make that happen.
I am sorry for you Yanks, you do seem to be heavily controlled by your religious fanatics and I would happily contribute £25 to help set up a clinic for women.