By now you may have heard about this week’s Doonesbury storyline, the one that many newspapers aren’t publishing. Here’s a link to the beginning of it, you can click on the strip itself to see a larger image. Just click through and read it.

All done? Good, now read this actual account of an actual woman going through that actual nightmare. Especially if you’re Texan, Republican, or male, don’t make excuses, fucking read it. Imagine it, try to visualize going through that. Imagine someone you love having to do that.

The bullshit line on this is “informed consent”, and it’s pretty obvious without even reading in detail that it’s bullshit. No doctor worthy of the title is going to perform any procedure on a patient who doesn’t know the score. This is outright cruelty. This isn’t some noble attempt to make sure everyone knows what’s going on, it’s totalitarian bullshit designed to make women suffer.

These assholes probably read about Morocco’s “get out of rape conviction by marrying your victim” law with approval. I wonder which state will be the first to attempt such a thing.

I think it puts the doctors in an impossible position, too. Check out this quote:

“When you come back in 24 hours, the legal side is over. Then we’ll care for you and give you the information you need in the way we think is right.”

In other words, after that pointless waiting period the political interference is over and the medical staff can get back to doing their jobs and taking care of their patients. Presumably this involves going off the state-approved script and discussing the actual potential risks and relevant information.

This is the state hurting people for no reason. Seriously, what is the benefit here? Far as I can tell this waste of time & resources only served as a stepping stone for members of a political party that, for all its talk about fiscal responsibility and small government, seems in practice to be about making everyone who’s not a straight white rich man suffer as much as possible while funneling money to the ultra-rich. That’s not nearly as much hyperbole as it sounds, Republican primary candidates have been attacking each other for not stepping on women & gays enough for the last year.

These are people’s lives here. These are major events in their lives, events they need help and care and compassion for, and you’re not only working hard to add as much pain & misery as possible, you’re actually suppressing the help and care and compassion better people than you are offering them. I don’t understand how you can possibly consider yourselves the good guys here. I know there’s lots of talk about “unborn lives” and protecting them, but that’s not what you’re actually doing. You’re just hurting people.

It blows my mind that we’re in the 21st century and it’s still necessary to remind politicians that women are, in fact people. A woman is more of a person than a fetus she may be carrying. Yes, even if that fetus is male.

Politics has no place in the doctor’s office. And of course every doctor involved now has a guilty conscience, because they swore an oath to do no harm, and yet this law forces them to harm their patients in order to do their jobs.

Not to be outdone, here’s a Georgia rep trying to outlaw all abortions past 20 weeks, without exception, and directly comparing women to livestock.

Rep. Terry England compares women to cows, pigs and chickens. from Bryan Long on Vimeo.

I found the Texas link on Butterflies and Wheels and the Georgia video on Pharyngula. In related abortion bullshit, Ophelia Benson of Butterflies and Wheels re-ran some old posts about Catholic bishops explicitly ordering hospitals to let women die rather than abort a fetus. Fucking monsters.