American Family Association's New Anti-Choice Video 'Aaron'

What? I don't even.

Watch:

The American Family Association presents - Aaron from American Family Association on Vimeo.

Pat Robertson: Democrats Are The 'Party Of Gays, Godlessness And Whatever Else'

It's gotten to the point that it would be newsworthy if Pat Robertson didn't say something completely insane in his broadcast. He's a broken record of bigotry, senility, and illogic.

That being said, Robertson is downright outraged that the Democratic platform openly embraces marriage equality and the right to abortion.

Robertson, speaking on The 700 Club:

Back in the 1850s or 60s there was a charge that one party was the party of rum, Romanism and rebellion. I don’t know what you label the Democrats now but it’s the party of gays, godlessness and whatever else. I mean, same-sex marriage is in the platform, they want to go along with that as a right, I’m just astounded.
…
They can’t defend it and you ask yourself, you’re going to go before the American people and that’s going to be the face they’re going to present to America. You have insulted the Catholic Church with your rules, you have insulted right-to-work states, you have insulted certain union groups with your stand on the pipeline and now you’re going after God, it makes no sense but that’s what they want to do.

Watch:

GOP Reproductive Ideology: Ridicule Is The Only Weapon

Between trans-vaginal ultrasound legislation and personhood initiatives, it is clear that the GOP is completely off the rails. One might think the train has stopped in the 18th century.

Thomas Jefferson once said, "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions." It's nice to see that the spirit of Jefferson lives on in halls of legislation (even though many conservatives would like to forget about him).

Take Yasmin Neal of the Georgia House of Representatives. In response to the insane attacks on women's reproductive rights, she authored a bill that would ban vasectomies.

"Thousands of children are deprived of birth in this state every year because of the lack of state regulation over vasectomies," wrote Neal in a statement. "It is patently unfair that men can avoid unwanted fatherhood by presuming that their judgment over such maters is more valid than the judgment of the General Assembly, while women's ability to decide is constantly up for debate throughout the United States."

Beautiful.

Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams added, "What is more deplorable is the hypocrisy of HB 954's author. If we follow his logic, we believe it is the obligation of the General Assembly to assert an equally invasive state interest in the reproductive habits of men and substitute the will of the government over the will of men."

This came on the heels of another bit of legislation-as-ridicule, this time out of Oklahoma.

State Sen. Constance Johnson proposed an amendment to Oklahomas' personhood bill. The amendment was referred to as the "Every Sperm Is Sacred" Bill, after the brilliant Monty Python song from 'Monty Python's Meaning of Life.'

The amendment states, "[A]ny action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child."

It's a slippery slope.

Couple Swears Their Sonogram Shows Fetus 'Tebowing'

Via LifeNews:

Champ, clearly Tebowing

A Colorado couple and their family who are big fans of the Denver Broncos say their unborn baby was captured on an ultrasound image in the now-famous “Tebow” prayer stance, made popular by pro-life champion and Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow.

“After the Broncos won the Steelers in the playoffs…We went in for a ultrasound to find out the gender of our baby,” Elizabeth Vigil says on YouTube in a post of a local television news clip of her unborn son. “This is the 4D photo that captured our baby BOY!!! “Tebowing” baby is due in May 2012 Our little Champ!”

The couple plans to name their baby Champ, but are not sure if that will be their son’s first or middle name.

Now, of course we all know by now that Tim Tebow is unapologetically anti-choice, in part because of the messianic Bronco quarterback's origin story. Anti-choice activists have made Tebow their poster boy -- a living, breathing, Tebowing example of the potential of a blastocyst. (Remember that Super Bowl ad by Focus on the Family?)

We also know that Tebow's overt displays of faith, and a series of clutch performances, have caused the faithful to conflate coincidence with divine intervention.

We also know that fetuses are pretty cramped in the womb, and that they have limbs which they can position in any number of ways.

We also could say that the fetus is doing any number of things in the ultrasound -- perhaps a facepalm?

But we also know that humans are often irrational -- Bronco fans possibly more so.

Randall Terry To Run Graphic Anti-Choice Super Bowl Ads During Super Bowl

While you and your family gather around the television to watch the Super Bowl this year, you may be subjected to graphic anti-choice ads featuring aborted fetuses.

Randall Terry, anti-choice activist and founder of Operation Save America (formerly Operation Rescue), has found a loophole that will allow him to run the ads on local stations during the Super Bowl. How can he do this? Quite simple: He's running for President of the United States.

Via The New Civil Rights Movement:

Terry, who has spent a year in jail and been arrested 50 times for his anti-abortion efforts, is using a Federal Election Commission loophole that ensures ads for political candidates cannot be prohibited within 45 days of an election. Apparently, primaries count, so Terry will be running ads on local stations during Super Bowl XLVI February 5.

Got that? Terry has filed to run for president.

If you think his tactics won't work, you might want to think again.

Terry has already run political ads featuring graphic images of babies killed by abortion during the first and second trimester. The ads were part of a three day ad run in New Hampshire on WBIN. The ads consisted of four 30 second spots that ran in rotation that attacked Obama’s support of child killing by abortion. (Greeley Gazette)

Of course, you can predict that any opposition to the ads will be met with the old standby: "If abortion isn't wrong, then you shouldn't mind seeing the pictures on TV."

A stupid remark that misses the point, but I don't really care to see graphic images of babies being born during Sunday TV commercials, either.

Culture Wars 2012: Faux Religious Persecution

Sarah Posner, over at Religion Dispatches, writes about how 2012 will be a "banner year in the faux religious discrimination wars."

She highlights a full page ad placed in the Washington Post by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The ad provided the Bishops with a venue to voice their disapproval of the Department of Health and Human Services rule which requires employer health insurance plans to provide contraception without co-pay. The Bishops claim that if Obama does not amend the rule, his administration will be guilty of religious discrimination.

Posner writes:

The Bishops’ opposition to the Department of Health and Human Services rule—which they describe as mandating “preventive services” (scare quotes in original)—was to date the most public salvo from their Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty. That effort was launched last June because, in USCCB president Timothy Dolan’s ominous words, “never before have we faced this kind of challenge to our ability to engage in the public square as people of faith and as a service provider. If we do not act now, the consequence will be grave.” At the Bishops’ annual meeting in Baltimore this past November, Dolan took his charges into conspiratorial territory, telling reporters that “well-financed, well-oiled sectors” were attempting to “push religion back into the sacristy.”

While many may see this as simply more of the same Catholic 'recommendations' we've seen over the years, the Bishops are poised to put their money where their mouth is.

Staffed with ten of the Bishops’ brethren, the Ad Hoc Committee will be assisted by the USCCB’s former top lawyer and now Associate General Secretary, Anthony Picarello, who served on Obama’s first Advisory Council to his Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. A staff lawyer and a lobbyist have also been hired and assigned to the effort.

Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution last October, Bishop William E. Lori, chair of the Ad Hoc Committee, described LGBT equality and access to reproductive care as “serious threats to religious liberty,” that “represent only the most recent instances in a broader trend of erosion of religious liberty in the United States.” The problem, he went on, is like a disease that must be treated immediately, “lest the disease spread so quickly that the patient is overcome before the ultimate cure can be formulated and delivered.”

Louise Melling, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, sees the Bishops’ framing as “significant,” noting that, “They’re really trying to put a spin on what’s happening, and they’re hoping that they can convince people that their rights are the ones being violated.”

These faux religious discrimination claims are a phenomenon that we have seen mirrored in US culture for years, although it seems to have been ramping up recently.

These claims come from two angles:

On one side, as Posner illustrates, we see religious organizations and legislators condemning any tax money being associated in any way with the funding of services at odds with religious teachings (contraceptives, abortion, etc).

On the other side we see cries of religious persecution any time harmful or discriminatory religious ideology is condemned or challenged.

Daily, we hear politicians claiming that equal treatment of gays and lesbians encroaches on their religious liberty -- essentially their 'right' to aggressively discriminate against gays and lesbians.

Just a few days ago, I engaged Peter LaBarbera on Twitter. Peter LaBarbera is the president of the anti-LGBT Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, an organization which is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

LaBarbera had re-tweeted a comment that stated, "The left likes to immediately shut people's views down by shouting "Racist, sexist ,homophobe" - since 80s."

In other words, LaBarbera and his ilk believe that, if their religion states that something is true (i.e. that homosexuality is an 'abomination,' or that women should submit to their husbands), and they act on that 'truth' by way of discrimination, then society is wrong to condemn these acts as homophobic or sexist. They are scripturally 'true,' after all, and our constitution protects the freedom to practice our religion.

Recently, on the campaign trail, Rick Santorum stated that he would seek to invalidate gay marriages via a constitutional amendment. During his trip to Iowa this week, he stated (as he has on many occasions) that "rights come to us from God." This is not dog-whistle politics. There's no subtlety about it. This reflects Santorum's insistence (and that of many other GOP candidates and legislators) that anti-LGBT, anti-choice legislation is in keeping with God's law, and is therefore wholly American.

We have seen resistance to hate speech legislation (and same-sex marriage legislation) in which opponents wrongly proclaim that ministers would be prosecuted for preaching against homosexuality.

We have seen legislation which allows for anti-gay bullying, as long as it is religion-based.

The culture wars have come down to this: opponents of progressive legislation have run out of cards to play. Their beliefs are not backed up by the science. The studies do not support their anti-LGBT, anti-choice ideology. (And in the case of contraception, 98% of Catholic women use birth control, despite its ban in the church.) All they have left is the supernatural, which is protected by religious freedom, and that's the only card they have left to play.

What they fail to understand is that religious beliefs cannot become law simply because they are religious beliefs. Religious beliefs may indeed dovetail with secular law -- for instance, stealing is frowned upon for many reasons that have nothing to do with religion. It is not illegal because God said so somewhere in the Bible. We do not have laws against wearing blended fabrics -- such a law would not have a secular purpose.

If the basis of proposed legislation (or your opposition to legislation) in any way relies upon supernatural concepts (i.e. 'soul,' 'sin,' 'God,' etc.) you can be pretty sure that it's unconstitutional.

It is not religious discrimination to employ and enforce secular law (or to extend secular rights to all citizens). It is not religious discrimination to oppose and strike down the legislation of religious ideas which have no secular basis.

I would ask any religious conservative if they are okay with implementing Islamic laws requiring women to cover all of their bodies except their hands and face. If not, why? Most likely, they would answer that this is not something they believe, and that it as extreme and discriminatory. This is how many Americans view the beliefs of the Christian right.

To impose these laws on us is the same as imposing Islamic law on them. To deny citizens their secular rights because of your religious beliefs is impose your religion on those who do not subscribe.

Mississippi's 'Personhood' Amendment Is Ludicrous (It May Be Coming to Your State, Too)

Update: The Mississippi personhood amendment was defeated on Tuesday, Nov. 8, but other efforts are underway in other states. This initiative is not going away anytime soon.

A blastocyst (aka 'person') on the tip of a pin

Mississippi is on the verge of passing a constitutional amendment that would define a person as a fertilized egg.

The so-called "personhood" amendment is on the November 8 ballot, and according to the most recent polling, it is very likely to pass.

This should be ridiculously alarming to anyone who is not completely out of touch with reality. Not only would the amendment have cascading legal implications, it would also have serious impact on the health and rights of all women. In addition, the amendment endorses all sorts of religious ideas, whether or not those are defined in the legislation.

Slate served up a slightly humorous, yet incredibly scary, list of legal questions that would arise from the legislation, including the following:

If you are legal person at fertilization, does that mean you could drink at 20 years and three months? Could you drive at 15 and three months? Could you vote at age 17, and collect Social Security at 64?

For legal purposes, would your birthday still be your “birth” day? Or your fertilization day?

Could you arrest women for smoking or drinking while pregnant? Could the state file a child abuse case against a mother who didn’t wear a seatbelt or otherwise endangered her fetus?

If a doctor doesn't take all possible steps to stop a miscarriage, would that be manslaughter?

Could you post ultrasound photos of your fetus (naked) on Facebook? Or would that be child pornography?

Would you be an American citizen if you were conceived in Mississippi but born elsewhere? Could there be “anchor babies” whose parents come to the United States, have sex, and then return home to Mexico for their baby’s birth?

If a woman eats food contaminated by Listeria and miscarries, could the agribusiness be prosecuted for murder?

What about ectopic pregnancies? If the embryo is not removed, it could kill the mother. Should the mother or the doctor be prosecuted for manslaughter if they remove it? Maybe it would be fairer to prosecute the embryo. If the fertilized egg is a person, isn't that person trying to commit murder-suicide?

Granted, some of these examples seem silly. But their ludicrousness underscores a few things: A) Such an extreme and broad amendment has huge implications on the interpretation of the law moving forward, and B) The amendment is ludicrous from the get-go.

Let's look at the human blastocyst. (By definition of the personhood amendment, a blastocyst would now constitute a person.)

Neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris wrote about blastocysts in relation to the ethics of stem cell research, but his arguments are just as apt in debating 'personhood':

A three-day-old human embryo is a collection of 150 cells called a blastocyst. There are, for the sake of comparison, more than 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly. [These] human embryos...do not have brains, or even neurons....Perhaps you think that the crucial difference between a fly and a human blastocyst is to be found in the latter's potential to become a fully developed human being. But almost every cell in your body is a potential human being, given our recent advances in genetic engineering. Every time you scratch your nose, you have committed a Holocaust of potential human beings. This is a fact. The argument from a cell's potential gets you absolutely nowhere.

Sure, a fertilized egg has the potential to become a human being. But we must also remember that an acorn is not a tree. It has the potential to become a tree, sure. We must take into consideration the fact that trees evolved to overcompensate -- to produce acorns that outnumber the trees that result from those acorns. This is how nature works.

Twenty percent of all pregnancies result in miscarriage. If all fertilized eggs are 'people,' then 20 percent of all people are killed before they are born. Will there be investigations to determine who was responsible for the untimely death of 1/5 of all 'people' in Mississippi? Will every woman who suffers a miscarriage be interrogated? If it was natural, is God the most prolific serial murderer in Mississippi's history?

Now that I've brought religion into the picture (how can one not?), let's look at this business of souls. Harris writes:

But let us assume, for the moment, that every three-day-old human embryo has a soul worthy of our moral concern. Embryos at this stage occasionally split, becoming separate people (identical twins). Is this a case of one soul splitting into two? Two embryos sometimes fuse into a single individual, called a chimera. You or someone you know may have developed in this way. No doubt theologians are struggling even now to determine what becomes of the extra human soul in such a case.

Isn't it time we admitted that this arithmetic of souls does not make any sense? The naive idea of souls...is intellectually indefensible.

The vote occurring in Mississippi should be very concerning to anyone who cares about privacy, science, liberty, and the enforcement of religious ideology as law. This amendment would ban all abortions, including those that result from incest and rape. It would ban IUDs and 'morning-after pills.' It would render embryonic stem cell research illegal. It would hamper in-vitro fertilization treatment.

God granting personhood to a blastocyst (artist rendering)

And, if successful, it will serve as a template for similar amendments across the country (there are already efforts brewing in Florida, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Wisconsin and other states), and passage could fundamentally transform the entire framework of laws in each state.

But what should be most troubling about this amendment is it attempts to define legally something which has yet to be defined by science. There is no consensus whatsoever as to when 'life' begins. There is no consensus on the definition of 'life,' in reproductive terms. The legislation attempts to define life in language that is in no way scientific. What it attempts to do is say that a bolt comes down from on high at the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg, and transforms it into a person.

This is supernaturalism, it's not supported by science, and it's about to become law.

Ray Comfort's Abortion/Holocaust Movie May Be Coming To A High School Near You

If you're familiar with Ray Comfort, you likely know him from of a video that circulated a few years ago featuring Comfort and former teen heartthrob Kirk Cameron, and a banana.

Comfort, enjoying an 'atheist's nightmare'

In that video, Comfort and Cameron, discuss how the banana is the 'atheist's nightmare,' because it is so perfectly designed: it has a natural wrapper (perforated and biodegradable, even!), a pull-tab, fits perfectly in your hand, and it even points towards your mouth as you're eating it. Certainly this is God's design, Comfort argues.

Comfort later offered a pseudo-apology after it was pointed out to him that the modern banana, as you and I know it, is the result of thousands of years of domestication by humans.

Ray Comfort's latest project is '180,' described as "33 minutes that will rock your world!" Comfort describes it as “so powerful that it not only changed the people’s minds about abortion, and made them do a 180 (degree turn in viewpoint), but it made them do a 180 when it comes to their own eternal salvation.”

I've seen the film. While I won't deny that the film has changed some folks' minds on the issue of abortion, I think it's more accurate to describe the film as watching a snake oil salesman coaxing kids into a anti-choice stance through dishonesty, logical fallacies, and emotional coercion. Comfort is a skilled showman. He's a carnival barker with a Bible. What he does in '180' has much more to do with manipulation, and backing kids into ethical corners where they feel they must concede to his viewpoint. Most of these same kids would buckle under similar pitches from car salesmen.

Comfort poses hypothetical dilemmas for the kids, asking if they'd follow Hitler's orders to bury Jews alive with a bulldozer. If they wouldn't, he asks them why. If they say it's because they value life, he asks them how killing per Hitler's orders is different from performing an abortion.

Elie Wiesel responded to Comfort's film by stating, "...Those who call [a woman] a Hitler and relate [abortion] to the Holocaust prove that they do not know what the Holocaust was."

The fact that this movie exists is not terribly surprising. It's simply a viral internet version of an argument that has existed for decades.

What is surprising, however, is the fact that Ray Comfort is trying to get this film into schools under the guise of Holocaust education.

From a press release circulated today:

A free DVD of the award-winning viral movie "180" may be coming to a high school near you. The creator of www.180movie.com, Ray Comfort, said "180 received over a million views in 22 days, because it's 'shocking.' It opens with 14 people (mainly college students) who have no idea of the identity of Adolf Hitler. One reviewer said, 'So, what's a pretty good documentary could have been even stronger without the fools early on.' Perhaps those who are quick to call these students fools lack perception themselves. These young people are rather ignorant as to perhaps the darkest period of human history, because the American education system has failed them."

Late last month, between 180,000 and 200,000 copies of the 33-minute DVD were given out at 100 of America's top universities, and now the Jewish author and TV co-host is turning his attention to high schools. "No doubt some will say that Holocaust education isn't appropriate for high school kids. However, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum says that the appropriate age is '11 years of age and older.' Nelly Silagy Benedek, Director of Education, The Jewish Museum (New York) agrees: 'From my experience, the best age to introduce students to the topic of the Holocaust is in high school.'"

Ray Comfort wants to teach your child about the Holocaust by showing them a movie about abortion and eternal salvation through Jesus Christ.

I hope you won't mind, Ray, if we teach kids about livestock through viewings of Brokeback Mountain, or about the value of physical fitness through viewings of al Qaeda training tapes.

Comfort adds:

"It's evident that many of the States aren't bothering to teach kids about one of the darkest periods of human history. I am concerned that we may become like the U.K. where some schools dropped teaching about the Holocaust for fear of offending Moslems, some of whom deny that the Holocaust even happened. This is more than a travesty, so we are giving hundreds of thousands of kids a free documentary that received more than a million views on YouTube in 22 days. We have already started locally, and they are going like hot cakes on a cold winter's day."

Like hot cakes on a cold winter's day... There's that carnival barker again.

The Batshit Files: News Roundup | 6.28.11

A whole buttload of crazy for you today:

• Rick Santorum: Liberals want marriage equality in order to ‘undermine faith' (ThinkProgress)

• Pat Robertson says God will destroy America because of gay marriage. (Right Wing Watch)

• Ohio state rep wants to ban abortion because China has too many smart kids (Right Wing Watch)

• Michele Bachmann's fans quickly revise Wikipedia entry for John Quincy Adams to match Bachmann's assertion that he was a Founding Father. (ThinkProgress) 

• Bryan Fischer weighs in on Michele Bachmann's "John Wayne" gaffe ... by claiming that all the Left is doing by mocking her is "reminding us of the clear connection between homosexuality and pedophilia." (Right Wing Watch)

• Bryan Fischer (he's on a roll!) says fidelity in gay relationships "just doesn't happen" and that it is common for gay men to have 500-1000 partners in their lifetimes (Right Wing Watch)

• An Oregon couple who treated their infant daughter with faith healing rather than take her to a doctor were sentenced to 90 days in jail and three years probation. (Oregon Live)

• N.Y. town clerk won't sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples. I suppose she should find a new job? (Daily Kos)

• Chuck Colson says that “the tyranny of tolerance” will drive America into a totalitarian state (Right Wing Watch)

• Catholic Church denies funeral mass to San Diego gay businessman (LGBT Weekly)

• Authorities find bomb apparently targeting immigrants in Arizona (SPLC Hatewatch)

• Michele Bachmann stands by claims that ‘Founding Fathers’ ended slavery (Raw Story)

The Good News | 6.1.11

I spend a lot of time here pointing out the bad and the ugly that I feel compelled to initiate a periodic trumpeting of the good. Despite ongoing attempts to impede progress, nice things are happening everywhere.  Behold, the good news:

• President Obama has proclaimed June to be Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month (WhiteHouse.Gov)

• American Muslim clerics sign up for evolution (NewScientist)

• For the first time in history, the majority of Americans favor legal gay marriage (Gallup)

• A Florida transgender teen has been crowned prom queen (Proud Parenting)

• The Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church approved a groundbreaking same-sex marriage resolution (Washington Post)

• The Southern Poverty Law Center won a major victory on behalf of cheated farmworkers (SPLC)

• New stem cell implant holds hope for diabetics (KPBS) 

• The ACLU is suing batshit Florida Governor Rick Scott over the drug testing of state employees regardless of suspicion (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

• The ACLU and PPFA have filed a lawsuit challenging South Dakota's completely insane abortion law (RH Reality Check)

• The Health and Human Services Department has told the state of Indiana that its Medicaid plan, which bans funding to Planned Parenthood, is illegal and must be changed. (Feministing)

• The kids are alright (ScienceBlogs)

The 10 Worst States To Be a Woman

Over at Alternet, Amanda Marcotte has compiled a list of the 10 worst states to be a woman. the list is based on the nearly 1,000 laws introduced by Republican (and some Democrat) state legislators in 2011 limiting women's access to reproductive health.

The losers:
1. Mississippi
2. Texas
3. South Dakota
4. Indiana
5. Oklahoma
6. Kansas
7. Minnesota
8. Georgia
9. Arizona
10. Louisiana

Most of these states, unsurprisingly, have other notable things in common.

See Marcotte's full story to learn more about what's going on in these states.

Michele Bachmann: Keep Your Hands Off America's Penises (But Control The Vaginas!)

Today, Michele Bachmann (R-Batshit) posted an article on her Facebook page about a potential ballot measure banning circumcision.  She writes: "Really? So much for "freedom to choose!""

Politifact's reigning Queen Pants-on-Fire apparently thinks the government should stay out of our pants. Except when they shouldn't. So much for "freedom to choose!"

To be fair, nobody ever said Michele Bachmann was consistent. Except for Politifact, I guess. 

Georgia's Miscarriage Bill: Make Way For The Uterus Police

Pro-life conservatives have been using every trick in the book to chip away at Roe v. Wade since the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision.  Recently, we've seen the Personhood movement, the calls to de-fund Planned Parenthood, the GOP's attempt to re-define rape ("If no force is involved, it's not really RAPE-rape, is it?") as a way to reduce instances of federally funded abortions, and bills in Iowa and Nebraska to allow for "Justifiable Homocide" defense against abortion doctors.

GA Rep. Bobby Franklin

But something is brewing in Georgia that takes the cake.  Georgia State Rep. Bobby Franklin has introduced a bill to criminalize miscarriages and outlaw abortions completely.  Any "prenatal murder" according to the bill, including "human involvement" in a miscarriage, would be a felony and would be punishable by life in prison or death. Yes, death. The bill states that "The State of Georgia has the duty to protect all innocent life from the moment of conception until natural death. We know that life begins at conception."  Yes, that's right. All blastocysts, zygotes and embryos are fetuses, according to the bill, and destruction of any constitutes murder.  The full text of HB 1 can be found here. (Warning: your head may explode.)

The strategy of such bills, it must be noted, includes pushing for legislation that is overreaching and/or provocative such that by compromising on the "crazy" part of the bill, the not-so crazy parts get passed in some form (These parts are usually crazy too, until juxtaposed against the bill's crazier parts).

Over at Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog! Go!, a reader (and MD) writes about the chilling effects of such a bill:

"Since 30-90 percent of fertilized eggs spontaneously abort, seems, according to Franklin, every woman should be required to track their menstrual cycle, and if there is a variance, they need to account for it to authorities, such that a spontaneous abortion can be investigated to determine if somehow the woman was responsible for the death of a human being."

Sure, this example is hyperbolic to some degree, and Rep. Franklin and the pro-lifers would certainly argue that this is not about punishing those who miscarry under "normal" circumstances.  But who is to decide what is "normal?" And how is a miscarriage's "legality" ascertained?

And isn't it interesting that the same core group of folks who want smaller government and less government intrusion want  to monitor your menstrual cycle?  They want the TSA to stop touching their junk, but want the menstrual police up in yours?

Ladies, get ready for the Uterus Police.