South Dakota Moves To Legalize Killing Abortion Providers

From Mother Jones courtesy of AlterNet:

A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state's GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state's legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person "while resisting an attempt to harm" that person's unborn child or the unborn child of that person's spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman's father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one.

Jensen did not return calls to his home or his office requesting comment on the bill, which is cosponsored by 22 other state representatives and four state senators. UPDATE: Jensen spoke to Mother Jones on Tuesday morning, after this story was published. He says that he disagrees with this interpretation of the bill. "This simply is to bring consistency to South Dakota statute as it relates to justifiable homicide," said Jensen in an interview, repeating an argument he made in the committee hearing on the bill last week. "If you look at the code, these codes are dealing with illegal acts. Now, abortion is a legal act. So this has got nothing to do with abortion." Jensen also aggressively defended the bill in an interview with the Washington Post's Greg Sargent on Tuesday morning. We have more on Jensen's position here.

"The bill in South Dakota is an invitation to murder abortion providers," says Vicki Saporta, the president of the National Abortion Federation, the professional association of abortion providers. Since 1993, eight doctors have been assassinated at the hands of anti-abortion extremists, and another 17 have been the victims of murder attempts. Some of the perpetrators of those crimes have tried to use the justifiable homicide defense at their trials. "This is not an abstract bill," Saporta says. The measure could have major implications if a "misguided extremist invokes this 'self-defense' statute to justify the murder of a doctor, nurse or volunteer," the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families warned in a message to supporters last week.

More here.

So of course this guy Jensen insists his bill has nothing to do with abortion. But then, this is how leaders in the anti-abortion movement have worked for years; once they figured that an outright reversal of Roe v Wade was most decidedly not on the horizon, they moved on to a more indirect sort of fight. So we saw massive blockades of abortion clinics until federal courts banned them. We continue to see legislative obstacles to abortion, such as required sonograms or weird required patient statements or arbitrary waiting periods. We see clinic bombings. We see assassinations of abortion providers. Or even this bizarre ACORN style attempt to implicate Planned Parenthood in sex trafficking.

In short, anti-abortion movement leaders are not ethical people. Instead of settling for making their argument directly, appealing to citizens to enact social change, these people are willing pursue such change by any means necessary, whether through lies, sophisticated dirty tricks, or terrorist violence and murder. I guess that when you feel like you're absolutely right about something, other people's lives and opinions just don't matter.

It is ironic, indeed, that these people call themselves "pro-life."

At any rate, these sick right-wing radicals in South Dakota can end all controversy simply by adding language to their amendment that plainly says that it has nothing to do with abortion providers. But I'll bet any and all takers a hundred bucks that's not going to happen. This bill does, indeed, target abortion providers; that's the whole reason for trying to get it passed. I mean, it's probably more about running abortion clinics out of the state, which has already happened for the most part, rather than declaring open season on doctors and nurses, but it's still pretty sick and disgusting, and it's yet another example of how anti-abortion leaders are completely willing to lie in order to get their radical anti-abortion agenda enacted.

You know, this is really an issue that needs to be publicly debated again. And I mean real debate, not the sort of stupid shit where each side just pushes their views without recognizing that the other side has some good points. Because when you've got a real public discourse going on, it's that much more difficult for these anti-abortion operatives to pull this kind of bullshit. I mean, abortion is a thorny issue as it is; lies, secrecy, and intimidation just make things worse.

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