Topic: Abortion

An unprecedented number of abortion restrictions have been introduced and eventually passed in state legislatures over the past two years, during a time when one might assume politicians’ focus would be on the economy. But there are real people behind the numbers and they are bearing the enormous toll of these laws.

According to Virginia Delegate David Englin doctors will be turned into criminals and women victims of a sex crime under the "object sexual penetration" law if Governor Bob McDonnell signs the state sanctioned rape bill.  Mr. Englin plans to bring his case to the floor next week when the house debates the senate version of the bill.

Not enough is done to ensure the safety of and access to clinics for women seeking an abortion. Women and their doctors remain under siege, whether its the seemingly unmitigated access afforded anti-choice activists enabling them to accost women as they enter a clinic, the refusal of law enforcement to take radical protesters seriously, to say nothing of the bomb threats, clinic shootings and murders.

This week, the Kansas House Federal and State Affairs Committee heard the largest, most expansive abortion restriction bill in the nation.  HB 2598 is a 68-page piece of legislation, that manages to cobble together many of the most extreme restrictions from abortion legislation currently under litigation in three other states. And yet when I stood up to oppose it, far-right legislators claimed I "went too far."