Abortion and Big Government

[Quantum Windbag]

I want to start this by once again iterating my position that abortion is wrong, and that nothing anyone is going to say is going to change my mind.

That said, I find myself getting sick and tired of the government using my objection to abortion as an excuse to interfere in things that are none of their business.

“Pray to end abortion,” say many pro-lifers. Given that abortion is a regrettable necessity at best, this is a noble sentiment. Unfortunately, politicians are not inclined to leave an outcome to the Almighty, who might mess it up.
Because they cannot ban abortion outright, conservative politicians have tried to discourage it in heavy-handed and sometimes humiliating ways. Thirty-four states impose regulations specific to abortion providers; 35 require counseling, and 26 impose waiting periods. Eight states, including Virginia, now require women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound. Last year lawmakers in the Old Dominion drew national scorn by proposing a law that would have mandated an invasive transvaginal ultrasound.
Indiana wants to top them all.
Last week the health committee of the Indiana Senate approved a bill to require not one transvaginal ultrasound, but two – one before the abortion, and one afterward – for medical, rather than surgical, abortions. (Medical abortions are those induced by drugs such as RU-486.)
The full Senate later dropped the second ultrasound. But it kept in place requirements that establishments dispensing pills such as RU-486 meet the same construction standards as those performing surgical abortions. As the Indianapolis Star reported, “That requirement means the clinic must have operating and sterilization equipment along with widened hallways and doorways. And that, said Planned Parenthood of Indiana, likely means that its clinic in Lafayette will have to close.”
As elsewhere, the lawmakers backing the bills have tried to portray them as efforts to protect women’s health. But that pose is pretty hard to sustain when you’re demanding wider halls and doorways for handing out pills.

Abortion and Big Government - Reason.com

 

[Political Junky]

Big government is getting into a woman's uterus, and mandating morality.