Not that this closes the door to aggressively “investigating” miscarriages and declaring them abortions.
Of course, their counter to this is the pseudo-caring babble of “But there are so many Christian families waiting to adopt, why take these babies away from them?” as if any woman who gets pregnant should be automatically be considered an unpaid surrogate / handmaid for some Xtianist rando. All sympathy to those who’ve struggled to adopt, but this as an excuse to control other women is beyond fucking gross. Also, the presence of 10 year-old kids in the system for years belies their concerns…
Yeah, but they would probably use other laws to do that. With the existing laws in Ohio they would probably rely on some section of the abortion manslaughter law in conjunction with a flimsy argument about viability. As a general rule though, Ohio has focused more of their insane anti-abortion laws on physicians (the attempted ectopic reimplantation bill from last year comes to mind), with explicit exemptions for the mother.
The rights aren’t a joke. What do you want to do? Nothing funny about “grabbing 'em by the pussy” either, but one response to that was marches of people wearing pussy hats.
Ohio has a nearly 52% female voting age majority and nearly 60% of registered voters are Republican. The State Senate has had a republican majority since 1985. State Supreme Court since 1987. The laws in place before this were already pretty draconian (“counseling”, 24 hour delay, insurance coverage restrictions, parents consulted for minors, fetal heartbeat test, 20 week limit) and yet these people keep getting reelected.
There are many forms of political expression that could drive the point home and the history of -effective- activism is rife with humorous or darkly illuminating approaches. A disruption of business as usual does let the elected know that something is not ok to a large group of constituents. If you did a noisy funeral for each abortion and did so each hour that the statehouse is open, that would be 74 funeral marches each day on weekdays and another 99 over the weekends.
Would it be better to have all of this go in front of the current US supreme court? Not asking sarcastically. @moortaktheundea pointed out that the similar Indiana law was already upheld in the courts.
I’m just imagining mile after mile of Tic-Tac sized gravestones for all the eggs that get flushed out the uterus during each cycle, and the untold billions of sperm are sacrificed to porn sites.
Mandating funeral rites for abortions is some grade-A bullshit. How about forced cremations for any lawmakers who voted for this bill? After death, of course…
Yep. I know this is a very sensitive topic, but I think it’s not out of bounds to suggest more, I don’t know, theatrical protests if that’s what will get attention.
In college I really admired actions lead by “Art and Revolution” which was very theatrical and never took away from the causes we were fighting for. If anything, the events I was at were brightened by them being there. We are still all working toward the same goal, by many avenues.
This is not in exclusion of other activities, but in addition to.
Does it only covers surgical abortions, but not medication abortion, because of that restriction on miscarriages? Or is there something else?
I get that their main point is the control over women’s bodies, and also the cruelty involved to “punish” them, but what is their endgame? Do they believe/expect that it will make people more sympathetic to their pro-life cause, instead making the fetus even less human and more an object/burden?
They require mock funerals but would be scandalized if people start mocking them using those funerals, as some users mentioned above.
Abortion is banned* in Brazil, and because of that, there are a few underground/clandestine networks of activist who mail the abortion pills from countries were it is legal and give instructions/support to the women in need.
Does that also happens inside the us, since the rules change from state to state?
That’s a good question. I imagine, if it does it is more accessible to those with means. Which is getting at the real purpose of laws like this, controlling the bodies of poor women. Those with means will always find a way.
There’s a heartbreaking set of stories here describing situations where women went to CO for the more humane allowances. Imagine for every one of them there is at least one woman in the same situation who couldn’t afford the trip to CO.
It specifies surgical abortion and the bill for the disposition of remains goes to the woman. The goal of the legislation is punitive and political posturing. Each blastocyst, zygote, or fetus requires a separate form, with a separate bill for funeral expenses. The form has a couple dozen pieces of info to be filled out and the requirement that the disposal be handled as a full cremation or burial means that it will add a few hundred dollars to the procedure. The cruelty and added difficulty is the point.
Non fetal humans have a different set of remains disposal laws, which are notably different. The remains have to be disposed of in a comparable manner, but they didn’t bind any particular party to handle that disposal or decision. If an indigent adult dies, for example, the state can handle the burial. There is also no requirement for a full death certificate for fetal remains, but there is no requirement for the substantial fetal remains form for other human disposal. Other non-fetal human tissue is handled under normal medical waste laws, which is what used to cover fetal tissue.
The Ohio state courthouse is on a very, very busy road- it is at the crossroads for the city (and in some ways, the state, as the main N-S US route and the main E-W US routes in the state are routed around the complex).
Holding a traditional, New Orleans style funeral parade for each aborted clump of cells with mourners processing around the capitol complex would be a rather effective protest, and how could the reich wingers object?
I was listening to the Boom Lawyered rerun of their Roe series and they pointed to another reason for the fetal remains laws. It helps establish a challenge to Roe. One of the strikes against Texas in the original case was that they couldn’t demonstrate that the state’s action in banning abortion was related to an interest in preserving fetal life in the legislative record of the bill. Having things like fetal burial requirements, abortion murder statutes, and yes charging women build the legislative record that was absent in the original trial. https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2021/01/06/what-is-the-states-interest-in-protecting-the-fetus/
