Stephan: The christofascist Republican effort to deprive women of control over their own bodies is alive and well in Red value states, and Iowa has effectively overturned Roe v Wade. The bill reported on in this article was passed by a Republican legislature and signed by a Republican governor -- who is also a woman. It is a particularly vile example of this trend.
Let's be very clear, making abortion illegal, does not end abortion. What it does do is kill and maim lots of women. No woman undertakes to get an abortion casually. And if the situation a woman is in is bad enough, she will turn to whatever means are available to terminate her pregnancy. The data is absolutely clear on this.
Before Roe v Wade I knew two women -- and no I was not the father in either case -- who died from illegal abortions. One was 17 from a religious family and pregnant by I do not know who. She died of septicemia resulting from a kitchen table abortion in Kentucky. The other was 23 from a Roman Catholic family whom she felt would disown her. She bled to death. If this laws stands there will be many such women in Iowa. Just watch the data as it comes out.
Republican Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed one of the country’s most restrictive abortion bills into law on Friday.
The so-called “heartbeat” legislation bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat has been detected, at about six weeks of pregnancy. Exceptions are made in cases of rape, incest or medical emergency.
Republican state lawmakers worked late into the night this week to push the measure forward. During Tuesday’s debate in the Statehouse, Rep. Sandy Salmon said, “A baby has become something we can throw away. This bill says it’s time to change the way we think about unborn life.”
The bill passed the state House on Tuesday and the state Senate early Wednesday. Then it landed on Reynolds’ desk.
“I understand that not everyone will agree with this decision,” Reynolds said in a written statement. “But if death is determined when a heart stops […]
