Saturday, January 31, 2009

Ah, progressive Utah.

Woke up this morning and matttbastard and Sylvia were already ahead of me on this one:

The Utah House of Representatives will hear a controversial proposal that could hold physicians responsible for homicide if they perform abortions deemed illegal by the state.

Under current state law, abortion is allowed only in cases of rape or incest, if the fetus cannot survive outside the womb or is unlikely to survive, or to save the mother's life or preserve her health.

Abortions that don't meet any of those standards can result in third-degree felony charges.

Under House Bill 90, sponsored by Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clinton, physicians who perform illegal abortions could be charged with second-degree felony criminal homicide...

Ray's bill states that, to justify an abortion, two physicians would have to separately determine a fetus has a birth defect that would prevent it from surviving outside the womb, but Hodo said it may still force women to give birth to children who have no chance of long-term survival...

Rep. Phil Riesen, D-Salt Lake City, cast the only vote against the measure. He said women should be allowed to make their own choices, and expressed frustration with the overall nature of the abortion debate in the Legislature.

"It's analogous to charging people with crimes because there are accidents at four-way intersections, when we have the technology and the knowledge to prevent those accidents by installing traffic lights," Riesen said.



Yeah. Um, Utah state leg? Fuck right off. You can tell 'em what you think here, at their website.

Note, also, that it's the doctors being charged. Not the women, because women clearly don't have enough agency to make their own choices. Doctors (obviously gendered male) must make the choices for them.

Like Sylvia said,

“Will women be accomplices, then? Or scenes of the crime?”