What kind of idiot decided to put this poll on CNN?
Should information about women who get abortions be posted online?
No 93%
Yes 7%
What kind of information are they thinking of? Home addresses, phone numbers, that sort of thing?
If you read the associated article, you discover that an even bigger idiot in the Oklahoma senate, Todd Lamb, wants women in his state to fill out a 10-page, 37-question questionnaire before allowing them to get an abortion, and that information would be published online.
It’s good to see the poll is going the right way, but jebus…this is another low in the long and sordid history of anti-choice intimidation.
WHY WOULD THEY EVEN ASK THAT??????????
*apologies for the CAPSLOCK*
Only if we also make it mandatory to post the same information of men who buy crotch-enhancing products, which I won’t name for fear of setting off a spam filter.
Perhaps the poll was put in place to show the senator that a majority of people think his idea is a very stupid one.
And I’m quite sure these people are oblivious to how EVIL there purpose and intent is. So wrapped up in thier exceedingly narrow godly views they have no idea their actions are the antithesis to what they think they believe.
Or to put it in simple plain language terms, they are mindless god-bots.
Very disturbing. I re-tweeted it.
Do they also plan to post info about every other kind of medical procedure? How about cosmetic surgery? Maybe we should all be required to disclose everything we do all day long.
And that’s aside from the nefarious motives of Todd Lamb and his ilk.
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
Fucking scumbags just don’t stop do they?
The old Slut Shame and Child Murderer ploy. How touching. What? Hanging a scarlet letter on them is not enough?
Remember this poll that was pharyngulated in Oct?
“Should Lockland be forced to remove the 10 Commandments from its town hall?”
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/ten_commandments_poll.php
Here was the outcome…
“Lockland Ten Commandments removed”
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20091217/NEWS0108/912180321
If anyone wants to see the text of the enrolled version of Oklahoma House Bill 1595, it is available as an rtf file on the state legislature’s website. You can see how anti-abortion legislators dream up obstacles that limit a woman’s reproductive freedom.
I find it interesting that the people who are most fervently opposed to freedom of choice keep saying that God is “pro-life” and “anti-abortion.” Don’t they know that God’s is the world’s biggest abortionist, bar none? With an estimated 20% to 30% of pregnancies spontaneously aborting, no one can touch the old man in the sky when it comes to terminating pregnancies (or should I say “murdering pre-born children”?).
@ #10
(Not the outcome of the poll, but the outcome of the story / issue.)
“What kind of idiot decided to put this poll on CNN?”
I’m guessing the same person who decided that the top story right now would be “Can Joel Osteen Help You Pay Your Bills?”
I sent an email to Todd Lamb:
lamb@oksenate.gov
and asked him if he is insane or just ignorant.
Pharyngulate him with email!
Who the hell cares who gets an abortion. There are people starving in Japan.
I hate religion. Creationists (delusionists) need to get their minds off sex and reproduction and quit telling people what the hell to do!
Way ahead of you, PZ! :-) We blogged about this Friday morning.
Clearly the idea is to 1.) shame the woman into not having an abortion and 2.) threaten her with exposure to her community through having private information collected and possibly disseminated.
These are the responses which can be selected to respond to section 15, “REASON GIVEN FOR ABORTION (check all applicable),” on the questionnaire:
Having a baby:
Would dramatically change the life of the mother _________
Would interfere with the education of the mother _________
Would interfere with the job/employment/career of the mother ______
Mother has other children or dependents ________
Mother cannot afford the child ______
Mother is unmarried ________
Mother is a student or planning to be a student ________
Mother cannot afford child care _______
Mother cannot afford the basic needs of life ________
Mother is unemployed _________
Mother cannot leave job to care for a baby _________
Mother would have to find a new place to live _________
Mother does not have enough support from a husband or partner _____
Husband or partner is unemployed _______
Mother is currently or temporarily on welfare or public assistance _________
Mother does not want to be a single mother _______
Mother is having relationship problems ________
ENR. H. B. NO. 1595 Page 11
Mother is not certain of relationship with the father of the child ________
Partner and mother are unable to or do not want to get married _______
Mother is not currently in a relationship _______
The relationship or marriage of the mother may soon break up _______
Husband or partner is abusive to the mother or her children _______
Mother has completed her childbearing ________
Mother is not ready for a, or another, child _______
Mother does not want people to know that she had sex or became pregnant ________
Mother does not feel mature enough to raise a, or another, child _______
Husband or partner wants mother to have an abortion ______
There may be possible problem affecting the health of the fetus ________
Physical health of the mother is at risk ________
Parents want mother to have an abortion _________
Emotional health of the mother is at risk ______
Mother suffered from a medical emergency as defined in Section 1-738.1 of Title 63 of the Oklahoma Statutes ______
Mother wanted a child of a different sex ______
Abortion is necessary to avert the death of the mother ______
Pregnancy was a result of forcible rape ______
Pregnancy was a result of incest ______
ENR. H. B. NO. 1595 Page 12
Other (specify) ______
Patient was asked why she is seeking an abortion, but she declined to give a reason _________________________
SOURCE (questions begin on page 10):
http://www.npr.org/documents/2009/dec/oklahomaabortionbill.pdf
It’s interesting that numerous options are missing, such as:
— Mother was enrolled in an Abstinence Only program
— Mother received little, no, or erroneous sex education
— Mother was taught to be submissive to males and authority figures
— Mother was discouraged from using contraception by
– her father
– her mother
– her partner
– her church
– her minister/priest/religious leader
– her state
– all of the above
IIRC this is a replacement for a previous policy which required women to get an ultrasound, and the doctor had to show her the screen with the little beating heart (something like that). As stupid and manipulative as that was, at least it manages to be about the relevant issue: the possible moral status of the fetus. This however constitutes public shaming, and clearly moves the agenda from “pro-life” to just plain woman-hatred. For no other class of medical procedure would that kind of information be demanded, or made public (appendectomy? vasectomy? bowel resection? why not?). The medical association should pre-emptively declare it to be against their ethics, and forbid its members to cooperate.
My email to the little Lamb:
Dear Jackass:
Your anti-woman, anti-freedom, anti-American bill is despicable. It is simply incredible to me how any squint-eyed, pig-ignorant moron like you can feed himself let alone get elected to a State Legislature. Just how dumb do they grow the humans out your way? Don’t bother trying to answer – that’s what we liberal elitists call a rhetorical question. Have fun creating your new endarkenment.
Sincerely etc…
He says it has “bipartisan support”, and then goes on to say that the left are spreading misinformation about the bill. So which is it?
I’m willing to bet that somewhere in that bill is a clause in tiny print that says “except for my daughter”.
I’m certainly against the idea of putting something like this on the internet, but perhaps a public record, with a delay or something like that.
Fuck Todd Lamb.
What? Why would they do that? It’s not a crime.
Perhaps fuck you too, AVSN.
avsn,
But WHY??
The hardcore anti-choice types would like nothing more than a veritable “Handmaid’s Tale” type situation for women. They push the fantasy that thousands upon thousands of abortions are performed every day in this country, that the vast majority are gruesome, late-term procedures, that they are performed without a second thought by amoral, “loose” women and near-homicidal doctors, and they draw into the “movement” plenty of otherwise reasonable (if gullible) people who think, gee, I guess if that’s what pro-choice means, I’m anti-choice!
At the end of the day, it’s about control. Any proposal to post information about women who have already been through the trauma of deciding to have an abortion is nothing short of blackmail, a scarlet letter and a public pillory rolled into one. I think the proposal in OK wouldn’t allow the woman’s actual name to be released, but what sort of pissant cold comfort is that? Again, it’s all really all about controlling women and their reproductive freedom.
AVSN, would you settle for these women to be marked with a scarlet A? Or how about a BM? Or maybe SLUT? Hey, everyone should know that these are fallen women.
I would be OK with this if the first line said something like “ 1) ______ I decline to answer any questions so fuck off and die all you self righteous christian asses. Have a nice day.”
I worked at a place that gave customers anonymous surveys to fill out. The forms had a form number under a bar code. The form numbers were all the same. The bar codes were actually a customer number. They were in no way anonymous.
The wording, especially the choice of reasons for, and tone of the survey seem to me to be written to induce guilt rather than gather pertinent information.
Nate
The questions should be…
Should information about men being treated for erectile dysfunction be made public?
Should information on why Mrs. Lamb is sexually not satisfied be made public?
or Should Todd Lamb be made to where a sign which reads “I hate women to compensate for personal inadequacies and short comings.”
This is simple thuggery by legislation. This is not about shame, but about fear. It is a away of making implied threats to the safety and well being of women seeking this legal medical procedure.
Virgin birth.
First things first REY FOX, forget it, wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot pole. Janine, I’ve tried to “debate” with you before, and know you to be inept at it, so won’t persue your line any further. I will simply be happy with having my two cent in today.
avsn,
But WHY??
’cause bitches ain’t shit.
AVSN, I am not debating for this is not up to fucking debate. Slut shame the women who are unfortunate enough to have to deal with you. I hope they are smart and strong enough to stand up to you. And keep your two cents.
That’s always it, isn’t it?
avsn, why is it any of your fucking business?
Lamb is just another man trying to regain his patriarchal rights over women.
If there’s any doubt about the intentions of the bill, section 5 (subsection C) requires physicians to fill out the form with all known information and send it to the department of health for every inquiry into an abortion, whether or not an abortion is performed.
This is a gem of honesty:
“Section 11 “NEW LAW A new section of law not to be codified in the Oklahoma Statutes reads as follows:
…The legislature declares that it would have passed this act, and each provision, section, subsection, sentence, clause, phrase or word thereof, irrespective of the fact that any one or more provision, section, subsection, clause, phrase, or word be declared unconstitutional.”
Yes, yes, I imagine they would have.
avsn @22: You’re for a public record, just not on the internet?
Wow, way to prevaricate.
John Morales, there must be a public record of their shame.
Tell us, avsn, if it were your wife, daughter, mother or sister, would you want their filled out questionnaire made public?
This is a Yes or No question. No waffling allowed.
” fucking ” ” Slut ” these are the reasons I will not debate you Janine. As for the rest, you don’t know me, so I will forgive you your stupity. I shouldn’t even have to say it, but the women in my life are loved, respected, strong and BETTER than the likes of you in every way I have no doubt. The women I know, would not murder a child and call it a “choice” or “medical procedure.”
I expect you to spit and sputter the usual “pro-choice” doggerel from this point, but thankfully, I have a life offline and return to it only a few minutes.
Well, ‘Tis, no one avsn knows would ever get an abortion! At least, they sure as hell wouldn’t tell avsn about it if they did.
Ah, and avsn proved me right at the same time I was writing that. Good show.
That Joel Osteen headline at the top in 50 point font isn’t much better. The article is nothing but a 5000 word advertisement for him. Every time I think that the quality of US media has gone as far downhill as it can, I get proven wrong.
You have no doubt but the rest of us doubt it sincerely. You’re an asshole and I have no doubt that the women in your life know you’re an asshole.
Aaahhhh, poor widdle AVSN does not like strong language. Such a delicate soul.
Also love how AVSN can gaze upon the multitudes that read and comment on this blog and mfeels confident that he love the women in his life better than the rest of you fucking rabble. Also love how he knows that no women in his life would not have an abortion.
Oh yes, you have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that your life is better than ours. You are the fucking gold standard of humans. I kneel at you feet in shame. My I use my hair to clean your feet?
Please do return to your offline life, avsn, because you make me sick.
“May”. not “My”.
I somehow doubt male dominated submission is in any way stronger or better. And certainly the “love” is one sided.
avsn – two cents doesn’t seem like much to pay to advertise your misogyny in such a widely read forum – quite a bargain actually. We must raise the troll toll higher obviously.
now go away before someone puts your medical details online.
Janine, I’m disgusted. As if it weren’t enough for a woman to have to face this choice…
PS: I followed the link:
If he really were pro-life, he’d be trying to remove the death penalty statutes in Oklahoma, rather than being in favour of them.
He’s a liar and a hypocrite.
John Morales, IIRC, you are an Australian. Some of these christians have an excuse for why they can support the death penalty, it is only the end of mortal life. True believers know that there is eternal life. Read this from one of our Supreme Justices, Antonin Scalia. Have fun with that.
Ptr t #49
I dny y yr prz. I m nt msgynst. I hv (nd lwys hv hd) grt rspct fr wmn. My pnn tht brtn s wrng, dsn’t nt prvnt m frm rspctng wmn. I dn’t lbl thm s ‘snnrs’ jst bcs thy hd n brtn thr. Rspct fr wmn dsn’t mn I hv t b “pr-chc.” I ndrstnd tht ths vl s th lw f th lnd, nd wll nt lkly b rvrsd nytm sn. I wll nt lt y tk ny prz f ny srt frm ths. As fr my mdcl dtls, thy r n ln (MMA).
This bill remains under an injunction. Most observers believe that the judge will declare the bill unconstitutional. For details with interviews of attorneys in the case see:
You’re a wretched little scumbag, avsn. Go away. Now. Before I make your departure permanent.
I have the right to have an abortion because I can decide if I want to live with the scar of carrying an unwanted baby or not.
You like babbling about how it kills the kid, but pro-lifers just don’t care about the actual woman. What about HER life? She who will have to carry the thing, perhaps alone because the guy might not want a damn thing to do with all of this, and then she’ll go through the pain of pregnancy, give the child for adoption and forever wonder if out there there her child thinks it was abandoned because its mother was a some horrible being. And don’t give me any of that “She just had to stay abstinent”. I don’t hear you bawling up anything about the man who had his fun. After all, it’s a 2 players game minimum. The woman is the one that becomes the baby brewer. (That damn whore!) The guy can just walk away.
But no. What matters to pro-lifers is that the baby is born. Then they just don’t give a bloody fuck about their actual lives.
My mentality is simple anyway… as long as there are babies up for adoption, there is no need for anyone to bring an extra one up for adoption into the world.
avsn, please keep ignoring PZ (cf. #46).
Please.
—
Janine @51, I am speechless.
No-one else here would murder a child either. But then again you’re too ignorant to realize how much of a strawman that is.
One of these is not like the others. How is denying bodily autonomy respecting women?
I recently got into a fight with my father about abortion. He is not in favor of banning abortion but he sees it as murder and really hates it. The argument started when he referred to women who get abortions as ‘bitches’. He seems to believe that most women who get abortions were just too lazy to use birth control. Or that they see abortion as just another form of birth control.
It pisses me off because he clearly doesn’t know a damn thing about abortion. As if he has ever had a conversation with a woman who has had an abortion. And yet he feels perfectly comfortable calling women he knows nothing about ‘bitches’.
The whole conversation about abortion is just ridiculous at this point. Women who get abortions have been reduced to caricatures. They are no longer human beings with complicated situations–they are just lazy whores who care more about themselves then about the fetus inside of them.
But what pisses me off the most is that for all the talk of ‘irresponsibility’ on the part of women who get pregnant, there is almost no discussion about the responsibility of the men who get them pregnant. They are completely absent from the discussion. Just look at how we talk about women ‘getting pregnant’ as if it is just something that women go out and do in their free time. All these ‘pro-family’ jackasses like to scream about the ‘traditional’ family and the rights of fathers, but when it comes to unwanted pregnancies it is as though men had nothing to do with it.
Where is all the scorn and shame for the men who impregnate women who get abortions? Why do they get off the hook? They had every bit as much to do with the unwanted pregnancy as the woman. And yet you never hear about attempts to collect their personal information and make it public. You never hear them referred to as baby killers.
This whole thing just makes me angry. After the fight I had with my dad, I started doing some research on abortion. I just wish I had some way of showing him that women who get abortions do not make the decision lightly and that the reasons women have for getting abortions are not as simple as he seems to think. If anyone can recommend some good resources I would love to hear about it.
Sorry for the rant. This has been on my mind for a while now…
Rox, there is no need to apologize. Your rant was cogent and on point. And next time, if there is a next time, point out to your father that most of the anti-choicers are also against the use of contraceptives.
I want to say this is the best possible way but there’s no way to say it well.
I wish wish wish the reason someone cared about why a woman had an abortion was because they wanted it to not have to be a choice because nobody ever had an unwanted pregnancy. That’s never the case… it’s always to pass judgment. It’s sickening.
Michelle @ 55:
This is exactly my problem with “pro-lifers” too. I don’t exactly like the idea of having an abortion but that is 100 times better than the child being brought up by parents that hate him/her. I can’t speak for adoption, but the one adopted child I know lived a very screwed up life, and not because the adoptive parents were any kind of terrible people. In an ideal world, being pregnant would be supremely easy and any unwanted children could pass out of the life of the mother and into the lives of adoptive parents with no pain. This isn’t the case and I can’t see how a child living a life of anguish is better than never being born. Add into this the fact that most pro-life supporters are also anti social welfare, anti gay adoption and anti almost everything else that might make the lives of these unwanted children better and it all adds up to one big pile of hypocrisy. There are very very few pro-life demonstrators that are actually pro-life and actually care about children. The majority just care about punishing women for not upholding their social standards.
Like ever-so-pure avsn, who asserts that:
Yes, women who are so much better that they would starve their children just to bring another mouth to feed into the world because it wasn’t the fetus’ fault they got pregnant, right? Or the women who are so much better that they would leave their children motherless rather than have a “medical procedure” that would save their life because it’s “murdering a child”? Or how about the ones that would have the child and then abuse it for the rest of its life because it was unwanted? Yes, all these women are so much better than those of us who won’t condemn a woman who is making a choice for the sake of her own well-being. Not every woman who has an abortion is an unthinking, uncaring, stupid person who should have just known well enough to wear a condom. Some are raped, some want a child until it starts killing them and some are forced into motherhood by family members. None of them are any worse than the women you think are so wonderful. They are just doing what they think is best, for themselves and for the potential child. Maybe it is so easy for you to dismiss the pain of the life off an unwanted child, but if you had lived it, it wouldn’t seem so inconsequential.
This is a common problem with moralising politicians, usually but not always religious. There is no penalty imposed for their proposing such discriminatory, fringe mentality oppression.
On multiple fronts, incessantly they keep whittling away at our freedoms, slip wedges into legislation and keep wanting more and more their way. Eventually one of these groups or politicians gets a momentary advantage, exploits a fleeting flaw or gerrymanders their way into a position where their laws are passed. Once the damage is done, any dissent is silenced with prison – who needs to burn at the stake anymore?
Call after call for the banning of some right or recreation is given media attention, guilt is instilled, children need to be protected and finally we lose.
So here is my no so humble suggestion. We need robust anti-wowser legislation. If an individual or group advocates removing or restricting the activities of another individual or group (where that causes no harm to others), they should have their own freedom curtailed. Want to fine or imprison someone for doing something you don’t like? Easy, you should be fined or imprisoned instead.
In Australia the wowsers have been increasing their calls to change the drinking age, banning smart drugs, more draconian punishment for recreational drug users….it goes on – I’ve even seen suggestions that coffee should be restricted. The current drug laws here annually see the lives of thousands of (mostly young) Australians ruined for life, their educational and career opportunities restricted for life. But attempts to reduce access to precursors for herion has seen safe(ish) drugs like codeine removed from easy access to be replaced by paracetamol/acetaminophen. Paracetamol overdose accounts for large numbers of deaths, most of these are accidental and many happen under medical supervision. Paracetamol is the most common reason for liver transplants in Australia and exceeds HEP-B/C caused cirrhosis (typically with accompanying alcohol complications). These particular laws are just one example of how wowserism is killing us.
A games theory “tit for tat” law is required. Want to introduce “Hate Laws” targeting one group? – then you should be prosecuted instead, and if found guilty divested of any hard earned lobbyists’ money, punitive damages applied (to discourage others) and then a mandatory prison term given (if their proposed legislation included incarceration penalties).
It should also be noted that the most vocal non-politicians calling for bans on just about everything all stand to benefit in multi-million dollar handouts to administer the programs or to run the rehab centres. Others are employees of groups or government organisations (eg Police, Health Depts etc) best placed to make major gains if bans are enforced. Most are also religious (unfortunately, in New South Wales, the Police are run by one of the Hillsong charismatic nutjobs).
The only way to stop this is take action, rejecting the calls or ignoring them is not enough and will eventually fail. We need to start fighting back or we will end up being bludgeoned down again and again until we can no longer get up. Our tormentors and persecutors should be stopped.
Um…
avsn, then you can explain why you think that publicly identifying those who have sought abortions is a good idea. Do you think that harassment, ostracism, and violence (or threats of it) against these women is a good idea? And if the murder of abortion doctors is any indicator, you’d probably find some faint words of condemnation for those who commit these acts against the listed women, while also implying that they brought it upon themselves.
There are plenty of things that are perfectly legal that people find offensive. Should we publish personal details about those who fight government sponsored religious displays? Those who have children out of wedlock? Adulterers and polyamourists? Who else needs to be singled out and publicly shamed in your world?
“I don’t label them as ‘sinners’ just because they had an abortion either.”
We all stand in awe of your magnanimity.
All the more reason we shouldn’t have a “christian nation”. It’s ironic how mohammedans and jesus cultists claim they have incompatible beliefs when in reality they push the same bullshit. The more christian a nation, the more mohammedan it is, and since those cults all worship the same asshole of a god, that’s not good news.
I don’t see how such a stupid law could withstand any challenge; it’s a blatant violation of privacy (and an affront to human dignity) and with no benefit at all to the community at large. Then again, the christians all promoted and supported those sex offender lists, didn’t they?
Rox, what you wrote was awesome. If it makes you feel any better, I once thought the way your father did, but now think very differently. It’s not always easy, and I still struggle a little with the concept now and again – that is, until I realize that the women who actually have to go through with it (I’m a man) are often struggling with it a lot harder, and in a way I can never fully understand.
It seems that for “pro-life” people, the saying “life starts at conception and ends at birth” is all too true. Once the child is born, the cries for “personal accountability” can begin in earnest.
Not to worry, though. I have it on good authority that they’ve never executed someone who was innocent. They make sure of this by never hearing appeals for those who’ve already been executed. It’s pure genius!
Rx I hv t gr wth MrFr, dn’t plgz fr th rnt.
Why is it that their defence for their misogynist, patriarchal, Christianity-twisted demand for personal, private information is as follows:
Subjecting a woman to an inquisition before she can have a medical procedure is somehow a way of giving her information?
Her identity will be protected?? At the very least it wouldn’t be protected from the doctor. And frankly, it’s none of the doctor’s business why I feel it necessary to terminate a pregnancy. Their concern is my physical and psychological well-being. That’s it. Make sure the procedure is safe, provide a reference to counselling services should I wish to employ them. Period.
Nothing in this act looks like a violation of rights. As far as I can see, they ask for this questionnaire AFTER providing the abortion (given the past tense being used on the questions), and it’s not like they’re publishing individual profiles of these women on the internet. It’s published in an annual statistical report. You aren’t going to be able to trace this info back to individual women based on aggregated data.
There’s no “Home addresses, phone numbers, that sort of thing?”.
It’s clear from the questions that this was written by pro-life people, and some of the questions are kinda harassing (“Method of fetal tissue disposal”), but other than changing a few questions like that, there’s nothing wrong with it.
All of you need to fact-check more. This is embarrassing. You should know better than to believe a company like CNN right off the bat about OMG INFORMATION BEING PUBLISHED ABOUT YOU ON THE INTERNETS. Your BS detector is great when it’s right-wing, but when it’s BS in your favour, you eat it up.
Words escape me. Unless you want women to die for having an abortion, it makes absolutely no sense to ever publicly post information about women who have abortions.
Slut shaming is bad enough, but the reality is the psychotic anti-abortion fringe would use this kind of information to murder women who have abortions. It is, quite frankly, inhuman that anyone would ever consider this sort of law in our society.
For a significant chance of locating all you need is gender (known, given that it’s an abortion), birthday and zip code.
There’s too much data here to be released.
Shudder. I was sitting here thinking how grateful I am that I (and most of the women I know personally) live in a country without any legal restriction to abortion. No arbitrary term limits, no (mostly male) legislatures, bureaucracies, or medical boards making what should be my decision about my body. That could change, and likely will change if Stephen Harper gets his desired majority government (especially since he’s about to tip the Senate to the right with some upcoming appointments).
Thnk y Sktj
Skatje, just what is the point of this questionnaire? Why should these woman have to answer these questions? It is just more harassment by anti-choicers and they commit a lot of harassment.
Whether or not the information is posted on the internet, given the nature of the questions I think Oklahoma has gone too far. It is harassment that the woman would have to provide answers to the question in the first place.
Did anyone read this, and /facepalm?
“‘Naturally, the abortion industry wants to block this, because they know the more information the mom has, the less likely she is to abort her baby,’ Newman said.”
I loves aborting me some babies! I grade my self worth on how many women I can get to get abortions each year. /eyeroll
@ avsn #40
You really think that none of those strong, awesome women in your life have ever had an abortion? It might be that you are right, but I doubt it. You would be amazed at the stuff that people hide from even those closest to them if they don’t think their loved ones can handle it. I know women who have had abortions and who have not confided in many others. Some even keep it from family and closest friends. That means I also know a whole bunch of people who are walking around right now thinking that they have never met anyone who has had an abortion; that none of the strong women in their lives would ever do such a thing. They are all wrong. If only they were more understanding, perhaps they would not be in the dark about their loved ones and perhaps their loved ones would not have to be so alone.
Good thing that NO WHERE in the act does it mention releasing zip codes and birthdays. And still, like I said, they are NOT releasing profiles of people. They are releasing STATISTICS. This information being gathered isn’t even part of the Oklahoma Open Records Act.
Quit making shit up.
Because statistical data is useful. I’m not even a scientist and I recognise this. But getting data about abortions is very difficult… volunteer bias like woah. The only way to reliably obtain info about who’s having abortions and why and how is to make it mandatory. I
The only thing really “harassing” about this questionnaire is a couple of questions that should be either taken out of rephrased. On the whole, the idea of doing a questionnaire with your physician about the abortion you had isn’t any more harassing than doing a questionnaire after any other procedure.
Oh, sure, I could support a questionnaire. An unbiased one, collecting reasons and other sociological data. With the data stored securely, and released with a delay. Like 100 years delay. And meanwhile released only to professional statisticians who sign non-disclosure agreements with heavy penalties for violation, and release only the de-identified aggregate data. That’s the sort of thing I’m doing in my new job.
Oh wait, that’s not what avsn wants at all, is it?
Well, the bill defines abortion as any pill, device, or procedure, including ones used by the pregnant woman, that causes the expulsion of an “unborn child,” which the bill defines as beginning at the fusion of sperm and ovum.
This would be a step toward making IUD’s and “morning after” treatments de facto illegal.
Skatje @71,
I take it then you’ve perused the proposed HB 1595.
I don’t see any misreporting of it in the link.
I think there’s more than one “kinda harassing” question there.
More to the point, I take it then you buy into the basis for and the purported utility of this Act?
@#71
You’ve got to be kidding. No one should have a right to ask anyone else questions like that, especially if they’re backed up by the law. And on top of that, this is a sensitive and personal decision about which a woman having undertaken it might be psychologically vulnerable, guilty or ashamed (especially if she was brought up to feel guilty or ashamed about having sex to begin with). To force her to legally subject herself to an interrogation is completely, utterly wrong. In fact, PZed wouldn’t be at all off base to label this one “Evil”.
I suspect that the legislators are hoping that even the thought of having to go through this added humiliation will deter some women from seeking out abortions altogether.
Sorry Skatje but I can only see this questionnaire as creating more harassment for woman who are seeking or have had abortions.
Skatje,
Why in the world should women accept that data gathering trumps their right to privacy? Having a medical procedure should not put anyone in a situation where they are subjected to any questions not directly related to their health after said procedure. In fact, I can’t think of a single procedure I’ve had with a mandatory questionaire.
Someone else pointed out upthread that “anonymous” surveys are rarely actually anonymous. I cannot support any law that mandates women answer any questionaire after an abortion. The potential for abuse is simply too great.
Pygmy Loris,
Not sure on this, but I think sex-reassignment surgery does generally require such, but the reasons for it are quite different.
John Morales,
Check my words again ;) I’ve never had a sex-reassignment procedure.
Just a note: the torture that people have to go through to obtain sex-reassignment surgery in the USA isn’t necessarily a good recommendation that we should expand such requirements.
AVSN, I very much doubt that none of your female relations has had an abortion; the lifetime probability, as I recall, is around 40%. So, for two women both to avoid abortion, the probability is 60% of 60%, or 36%; for three, 60% of 36%, and so on. You can also use the same formula for avoiding pregnancy even if using the most reliable known method short of sterilization, namely the Pill: 97* to the power of years of fertility, e.g. 35. I think it ends up with a 60% chance of unwanted pregnancy. Of course, doctors won’t prescribe the pill past the late 20s or maybe seven years, whichever comes first, so you have to drop down to condoms & foam or IUDs, which have higher failure rates.
And there have been other questionnaires, where questions like, “Did you tell your husband?” Are answered, “Of course not–he’s not mature enough to deal with it
Imagine the questionnaire one could write for prostitutes’ customers to fill out before they could be released!
Women, as fully moral beings, have to make up their own minds on this issue.
When Attorney General Francis Fox was pushing to criminalize abortion in Canada with one hand, he was forging his lover’s husband’s name on her abortion permission form… As someone once said, if a little light went on over the head of every man whose mother, sister, or wife had had an abortion, they wouldn’t be able to pass anti-abortion legislation.
AVerSioN, how does it make you feel that at least 80 women died in Nicaragua of pregnancy-related medical emergencies in the first ten months of their total ban on abortion?
And I won’t even mention the girl who bled to death at my former university residence in the week between a Conservative government’s passing an anti-abortion law in Parliament and its being rejected in the Senate.
Gettingfree @ #10:
Sounds like Johnson is somewhat reasonable and lucid, and Brown has no qualms about bending/breaking the law to get what he wants.
We’ll win when there are more Johnsons than Browns in these local governments…both WRT religious displays and women’s medical autonomy.
Samantha @ #61:
Thank you for your empathy. I was one of those unwanted pregnancies/babies. I would love to do to anti-choicers everything that was done to me.
Yeah. Because the one thing we need is more humans.
They should be careful what they wish for.
Fundie Death Cult xians have higher abortion rates than the general population. That mixture of stupidity and ignorance leads to all sorts of problems.
These idiots are all hypocrits anyway. I’ve lost track of how many fundie politicians have been caught cruising bathrooms or cheating on their wives.
Holy Fucking Shit
[OT]
@91: Sub-replacement fertility.
One reason (the other is projected population age demographics) for Australia’s “baby bonus”.
@#71:
There are a mix of questions to be answered before an abortion and questions to be answered after. Question 15, the motivation question, in particular uses the phrase “is seeking”, which is not a past tense question.
According to the Oklahoma Law Enforcement Agency Uniform Crime Reports, there were 1,466 forcible rapes reported in Oklahoma in 2008. Given that, it seems
“2. County in which abortion performed _____
3. Age of mother _____
4. Martial status of mother _____
5. Race of mother _____
6. Years of education of mother _____
…
8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother _____
…
27. Was the abortion performed within the scope of employment of an Oklahoma state employee or an employee of an agency or political subdivision of the state?
28. Was the abortion performed with the use of any public institution, public facility, public equipment, or other physical asset owned, leased, or controlled by this state, its agencies, or political subdivisions?
29. If the answer to question 27 or 28 is yes:
…
b. Did the pregnancy result from an act of forcible rape? If yes, list the law enforcement authority to which the rape was reported ____ List the date of the report ____
c. Did the pregnancy result from an act of incest committed against a minor? _____ If yes, list the law enforcement authority to which the perpetrator was reported _____ List the date of the report _____”
would be enough to uniquely identify each rape victim who got an abortion. I suppose we could let women know to not report their rape if they don’t want to show up here. Or, at least, keep quiet about it afterwards.
If you are, for instance, a 36 year old divorced asian woman with 2 kids living in Blaine county, nobody will know it was you. After all, there are an estimated 12,000 people in the county, and 0.71% of them are asian. Assuming that those statistics (admittedly old) need to be corrected by let’s say, 10 times the number, that still leaves over 800 asians. Nobody could possibly figure that out.
But, at least they’ll get, as provided for (S 5 ss E) “a notice containing an assurance that, in according with subsection F of Section 7 of this act, public reports based on the form submitted will not contain the name, address, or any other identifying information of any individual female”. Mmm, sweet assurances.
Cue, the forced birthers in 10 9 8 7….
But they aren’t Real Xians(TM)!!!
Skatje, County is going to be as good a zip code in a good chunk of OK, and age will not be quite as good as birth date, but it might be good enough. Is your degree in statistics to be able to say that this information isn’t good enough to track back to a specific person? Add in things like number of children, you’re getting more and more specific.
There’s way too much detail in these. The bill doesn’t say what actions are taken before public release of the data, and chances are, not much will be because most people think like you that this is anonymous when it could be tracked back.
The chance that a socially retarded creep like AVSN has even seen a woman close up lately is remote. They were most likely running away fast.
AVSN is the type of guy that makes you hold your cell phone with 911 on speed dial while making sure the can of mace is still in the hand bag.
Obviously if you post all this information by the individual, yes, you can track people down. Just like someone’s example about a divorced Asian woman in Blaine county.
My point is that this information is not getting posted in handy “Individual #2832 is a 22 year old mother of two in X county” format. It’s going to be in the format of “400 abortions were performed in X county, of which 80 were to divorced women, 40 were to married women, etc.”
You CANNOT track people down in any reasonable fashion when the data is published this way.
Evil. Mother. Fuckers.
I can’t even wrap my mind around 7% of the population being so utterly depraved. This has shaken my faith in humanity more deeply than anything I’ve seen in recent memory.
All of you fucking pig-ignorant bible thumping god-botherers: fair warning. You think you’ve seen angry atheists? you ain’t seen SHIT. Spout this misogynist bullshit to my face and you’ll be spitting out teeth – I swear it on all I hold holy (i.e. my family and my honour).
It says “…The State Dept. of Health will take care to ensure that none of the information included in its public reports could reasonably lead to the identification of any individual female about whom information is reported…or of any physician providing information…and that such information is not subject to the Oklahoma Open Records Act.” (p.7)
So, yeah, the proposed law does include that. However, there is of course the concern that some asshole in there will post the information. They’re at least paying lip service to not doing so, though.
Unfortunately we’re all a bit hair-trigger about this, I think, because we feel like we can’t trust the forced-birthers to be honest about a single goddamn thing. Which, I think, is a reasonable stance to take on the basis of induction at this point.
“My point is that this information is not getting posted in handy “Individual #2832 is a 22 year old mother of two in X county” format. It’s going to be in the format of “400 abortions were performed in X county, of which 80 were to divorced women, 40 were to married women, etc.”
Except that you can. It’s one of two possibilities:
1. A very limited subset of the information is presented, chosen to reflect some particular hypothesis about the meaning of this data.
2. All of the data collected is presented.
Unless, of course, they’re not really trying to collect data for statistical analysis. Then they could decouple the categorical variables without destroying their usefulness for moralizing.
“46% of abortions caused emotional problems” (one of the things required to be reported) could be decoupled from data about how many abortions are sought by women in abusive relationships, for example. I don’t know if there’s a correlation — my specialty is math, not sociology — but either the data is made available, and the degree of correlation can be tabulated, or the data is not made available, in which case there’s no reasonable justification for collecting it in the first place.
In statistics, an incorrect model specification can be used to assert all sorts of bogus statements, and without the original data, the validity of those statements (technically, the validity of the model generating those statements) can’t be validated.
Skatje in #80: Because statistical data is useful
Too fucking bad. All sorts of useful things are nevertheless not subject to forcible extraction. Yes that includes information.
I would love to think that actual data would settle even a little bit of the abortion “debate.” But we’ve had data on late-term abortions (and why women have them) for years and that hasn’t mattered. Look who gets shot.
If you want honest data, work toward making it something that doesn’t injure the provider. At least more like donating blood than like (involuntarily!) donating organs.
#103 was me. I’m old and mortal and getting more impatient by the day and don’t actually feel like being even semi-anonymous about this.
Ron Sullivan
http://toad.faultline.org
That’s what immigration is for. Oh wait, you’re Australian.
Skatje,
I would bet that you’ve never lived in a small town. When you’re talking about an area that is sparsely populated, it is indeed possible to track down individuals with scarcely any data – or, worse, stir up rumour and suspicion about a given woman. [‘Hey, it says one 17 year old in X county had an abortion – I bet it’s So-and-So who was out a week last year, you know she’s a slut and a ho’.]
The data would be useful for what? If the questionnaire addressed the failure of a particular type of birth control or form of sex education, one might argue that it had some utility. But many of the questions are designed to be emotionally intrusive, with the hope that they will dissuade someone from having the procedure. Note, please, that that is the stated reason for the law – no one promoting it cares about the statistics; all they care about is forcing women to have children they don’t want.
#71– “Nothing in this act looks like a violation of rights.”
Maybe not to you, but perhaps to the Supreme Court. See Planned Parenthood v. Casey, where the 5th provision of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act sought to impose less stringent reporting requirements than the proposed Oklahoma law.
Late to the party here, but Sweet Zombie Jesus, this moron wants a tailored “witch hunt” legally sanctioned. If he really wants the answer to unwanted pregnancies, it’s an easy one – education. Actual education, not utter garbage like abstinence only “education”.
The reason a woman has an abortion is her business, period. No woman should be forced to provide a reason. I had my reasons for having one 35 years ago, and it’s no one’s business but my own.
Skatje, if the subject were not such a political minefield, it could be easy to go with the information gathering tactic. But for over thirty five years, the anti-choicers have everything legal and illegal to end the action of abortion in the United States. In many parts of this country, it is difficult for a woman to get because of the pressures placed on both the women and providers.
Frankly, making the argument that this is just information gathering is illogical in the face of all the anti-abortion activity in this country. Unless it can be shown this this questionnaire is not for the harassing of women, your point is very weak.
Ok, this time in the right thread:
Long time lurker, first time poster.
I was right pissed when I first heard about this story. Posting surveys online, and forcing women to answer personal questions? Outrageous!
Having read over the bill, though, I can see that I overreacted. While individual survey forms will be submitted via an online form, I can’t see any portion of the bill that says individual surveys will be publicly available. The only public release seems to be aggregate data via an annual report. And while there are a tonne of silly options under “why are you having an abortion?”, there’s also a “the patient refused to answer” option. I imagine that’ll get used a lot.
There are still reasons to oppose this bill. Doctors are forced to fill out this form for every woman who consults with them about abortion. Most of the survey questions are just there to remind doctors of their duties under law. It’s a big waste of their resources, at a time when the US government is looking for ways to cut health care costs.
The survey reads like it was designed by a politician, not a bio-statistician. As edinblack pointed out in #17, there are waaaay too many questions asking about a woman’s relationship status, and none asking about contraception. If their goal is collecting information about abortion, why didn’t they consult an expert?
Even that bit at the end about unconstitutionality isn’t as bad as I thought. If those lines appeared only on that specific bill, I’d be right pissed. They smell like boilerplate, though, and probably appear on every bit of legislation that flows through OK. That demotes it from “evil fine print” to “stupid fine print”.
HJ Hornbeck
[Semi-OT]
Hm, I see Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo III has prohibited pregnancy in his troops (possibly leading to court-martial).
No incentive for abortion there, no siree! :|
Skatje @ 80:
No, it is harassment, an attempt to shame a/o guilt women into not having an abortion. Try going to a clinic to have an abortion (*if one can even be found in your area*) quietly and in privacy. Try finding a clinic where you aren’t forced into mandatory counseling, a 3 day wait a/o an ultrasound. Try finding a clinic where protesters aren’t present, yelling, spitting and taking photos.
I live in North Dakota, and most all the clinics that performed abortions have been shut down. For a woman living in a rural area, she has to come up with the money for the termination, as well as travel money and money to stay in a hotel for around a week. Why? Because the fundies have coerced the remaining clinics into the mandatory 3 day wait and counseling. In many parts of the U.S. it’s damn near as difficult to get an abortion now, while it’s supposedly legal, as it was back in the days when it was illegal.
This is simply one more way to attempt to intimidate women. I had an abortion, 35 years ago. Way back then, the fundies hadn’t gotten all upset yet, it was a private process, as all medical procedures should be. There is simply no excuse for putting women through this under the pretense of gathering statistics.
Oh,then everything is fine then, as the Dept. of health “will take care” that the info in its public reports could ID individuals. Whew. Especially since we all know that private data stored on computer systems are always safe from hacking and inadvertent disclosure.
Never lived in a small town? You have no idea. D:
But regardless, you’re still missing the whole point about this NOT being little individual profiles on people. You know, the point that I’ve been making in every comment so far.
Except this will be after the procedure is done anyway. What’s really going to dissuade women from getting abortions is CNN and you people making women think that “Wait, if I get an abortion, my NAME AND ADDRESS WILL BE ALL OVER THE INTERNET?”
Oh c’mon, this is xian kook in Oklahoma. Guaranteed to violate the US constitution and the moral codes of most religions.
Information always, always leaks. Even the Pentagon and the CIA, who have the option of simply shooting people in the head for leaks, have problems with leaks.
Collecting statistics on abortion. what BS. The US and Oklahoma have so many real problems right now, this would have to off the list. Unemployment in the USA is sky high, around 12% or so, people are struggling to pay for food and medical care and sometimes losing that struggle. Plus the usual social problems we always have to deal with, the usual massive budget deficits, and 2 foreign wars.
Tod Lamb should fuck off and get a life. We normal people have myriads of real problems to deal with and we are busy.
You should probably just… never go to hospitals ever if you’re going to be paranoid about that. Information about abortions is going to be protected just as well as hospitals protect your social security number and information about that colonoscopy you had last Tuesday.
Same could be said to the other people who commented saying things like “some asshole” might release the information anyway.
There are systems are in place to protect these sorts of things. If you somehow think that those systems that are good enough to protect the REST of your medical history are NOT good enough to protect a questionnaire, you’re being rather inconsistent.
You don’t seem to have an actual understanding of what many women go through to have an abortion, and how many of them are just that easily intimidated. You might not be, I might not be, but there are plenty of women who would be. Pro-lifers have gotten many doctors and clinics to institute intimidation/shaming/guilt policies.
You’re pro statistics. Fine. That is not what this is about. Lamb is a pro-lifer, that should tell you what this is about.
@#110:
“Even that bit at the end about unconstitutionality isn’t as bad as I thought. If those lines appeared only on that specific bill, I’d be right pissed. They smell like boilerplate, though, and probably appear on every bit of legislation that flows through OK. That demotes it from “evil fine print” to “stupid fine print”.”
This occurred to me too, so I checked it before posting. I didn’t find any other bills which had this or similar text. This does not mean that such bills don’t exist, but it certainly isn’t de rigeur. The assertion of a right to “intervene as a matter of right” is usually not given to the sponsors and co-sponsors of a bill but to the congressional leadership. IANAL, but it does suggest to me a certain possessiveness on the part of the authors of the bill.
Leaving aside the issue of the (in my opinion) pernicious nature of some of the questions themselves, aggregating data so that it remains useful without being unique is a non-trivial undertaking. Aggregation inevitably reduces information — that is, after all, its point — and selecting which information to lose is an analytical question whose answer depends on the question being asked. The text of the law itself never states that the full information won’t be used, only that it won’t be publicly released and isn’t subject to a records request.
Perhaps I’m cynical, but I see statistical calculations “proving” various assertions about women who get abortion being put forth by the state government without the data necessary to confirm or refute them being available because providing that would violate the law.
Fundie Okie death cultists being death cultists. It isn’t like they are smart enough or care enough to do anything else.
Skatje, you are not addressing the main point, the questionnaire is but one more small attack on women seeking abortions. It is a tool meant to harass. Your point remains very weak.
@#114:
“Except this will be after the procedure is done anyway.”
No, it won’t be. The questions about how the procedure was performed are, necessarily, past tense, but several of the questions (particularly #15, the motivation question) are unambiguously not post procedure. The phrase “is seeking” is a clue in 15. The form is required to be sent off even if no abortion was performed, the only exception being if the physician knows that some other physician performed the abortion. (In which case, that other physician will be sending the form.)
Under this law, a doctor can be fined and lose their license for not reporting an inquiry about an abortion.
Miki Z @ 121:
What does that remind me of…oh yeah, the fundies who want the gay inquisition bill passed in Uganda. Under that bill, people who didn’t report gay people would be subject to imprisonment.
The real moral of the story – the Red States, particularly the prairie home Christian ones in the middle, are uninhabitable.
@#121:
The forms are submitted on the last day of the month following the month in which the abortion was performed. Given that and the past tense of nearly all of the questions, the form is likely intended to be given after the operation. Changing the wording of question 15 could rectify this particular problem with the bill.
Skatje @116,
Those might be valid points if a colonoscopy was something that might get you ostracized or killed. It’s not. There are very few medical procedures that produce the kind of hate an abortion does.
I have to ask, do you have anti-choice friends? If you do, do you think they would still be your friends if you had an abortion and told them?
Most of my own family would disown me if I had an abortion and they found out. That’s the reality women live with.
Miki Z pointed out that the questionaire is for someone seeking an abortion and that some of the questions are explicitly pre-procedure. The purpose is to intimidate and harass women seeking abortions so that they will not get one. This is the main tactic of the anti-choice crowd. Pass law after law that seeks to dissuade women from seeking abortions and regulate abortion providers so heavily (in Missouri there are more stringent requirements for abortion operating rooms than for hospital ORs) that they have little choice but to close.
Every law they propose has the goal of limiting access to abortion. There is the very real danger that the questionaire data would be released and women will suffer for it.
Get The Fuck Out Of Dodge
Skatje,
If this bill had anything to do with collating medical statistics for the benefit of society you might have a point. That, however, is not the point. Rep. Lamb is merely using the cover of medical research to add one more burden on women seeking to terminate a pregnancy. He is adopting the well worn fundie strategy of adding straws to the proverbial camel’s back so that even if they can’t overturn Roe v. Wade they can make it so damned difficult to obtain an abortion that it becomes de facto impossible.
You may not feel burdened by such a requirement but many women are much more vulnerable than you. Imagine you were 15 pregnant and your father would throw you out of the house if he found out. How about if your husband was an anti-abortion fundie and a spouse abuser?
My conjecture is that Rep. Lamb knows full well that forcing women to give information will terrorize them into not going to seek termination – regardless of the actual probability that the information will be leaked.
#99
‘You CANNOT track people down in any reasonable fashion when the data is published this way.’
No all you need is suspicion and bigotry.
Since when do religiotards use evidence and facts as a reason.
This is going to cause a climate of distrust fear and secrecy above and beyond.
Seems that certain ‘godly’ folks hanker for the return of the ‘burnin’ times’
You did not need hard and fast addresses names and phone numbers when religiotards partied back the…just the paranoid and sickly delusions of folk that fear the church more then love the premise of xian love.
And suspicion fed by the local god-iz-uz inc!
And a few comely wenches of course…they so loved up those screams especially!
This is retard country…those questions are not just prying but an invasion of civil liberty.
And we all know who likes to define civil liberties according to personal or tribal advantage.
This is not a statistical numbers game this is raw religious prejudice…otherwise those questions would not be so specific…you need a number not life history!
@Skatje:
Statistics are always useful – knowledge is power. However, we have to ask ourselves – what is the purpose of this questionaire? Will it tell us anything that we don’t know already? If it does, how are we going to use the information to improve the situation?
If it turns out, for example, (to play the devil’s advocate here), that lots of women are having abortions because they had unprotected sex. What is the next step in legislation? Fines? Refusal of the operation? Toughening of the abortion legislation?
As to the question of it being a post-operation questionnaire, your point is null and void – women will know at the start of the process that they will have to fill in the details at the end. Just one more piece of harassment. Even as a man, I get this – I’m really surprised that you don’t.
Given the progenitors of the legislation, I see nothing to gain here, and all to lose.
Please don’t tell avsn, but my anti-choice Dad will never know how many of his six beloved daughters have had abortions. And that’s just how the six of us pro-choicers want to keep it: between us and our doctors.
This bill’s purpose is not to gather information. Its sole purpose is to
harrass and intimidate the sluts who murder childrenimpede abortions.I’d certainly like to see the records of who’s getting 1-[4-ethoxy-3-(6,7-dihydro-1-methyl-
7-oxo-3-propyl-1H-pyrazolo[4,3-d]pyrimidin-5-yl)
phenylsulfonyl]-4-methylpiperazine citrate made available online.
Another example for me of why I fucking thank fate that I live in Canada. It’s nobody’s fucking business why a woman chooses to abort her fetus, either before or after, and no such information could be useful in improving abortion services. An ultrasound is indeed necessary prior to the abortion procedure to locate the yolk sac and make sure that the pregnancy is in the uterus. When I had mine done, there wasn’t a heartbeat yet. Manual aspiration abortion can be done very early in the pregnancy, and is the safest procedure available, but not all clinics or hospitals offer this option, which is unfortunate.
The only survey I was asked to fill out by the clinic after my abortion was about the service I received, i.e., questions like “did you feel you got enough privacy, respect, care, information, timely attention, etc.”
There really doesn’t seem to be a good reason to collect this data. To find out why women get abortions? That just plays into the anti-choice narrative that women should only be allowed to have them if they have a “good enough” reason, or to figure out ways to penalize the ones who don’t have a “good” reason, etc. Abortion is a medical procedure. If you sweep away all religious connotations, it is as morally neutral as any other medical procedure. Do we collect data on why women get facelifts? On why men get hair plug transplants? The only type of data here that would be useful from society’s point of view is how easy it was to obtain the abortion, not what was going on in the mind of each woman who chose to have it done. Forcing women to divulge the exact reason they had the procedure done is invasive in a way that absolutely no other medical procedure is.
Skatje,
I partially agree with you that collecting data is useful, but I overwhelmingly agree with davem that we will get nothing from this information that we don’t already know. That is, except embarrassing women out of terminating her pregnancy, which is exactly what Lamb seems to intend to do:
Getting a medical procedure done is stressful enough to begin with. It becomes infinitely more stressful if you have to answer a detailed survey about all of your sexual habits beforehand to a stranger. And the mere fact that this bill is supported by nearly every major Pro-Life organization in Oklahoma is in favor of it should tell you something suspicious is up.
As a side note, I want to know where will the physical copies of these records be stored? I understand the internet will keep anonymous digital copies, but will the physical copies have the patient’s name on them? Because if so we know from their track record it is not below the Pro-Life movement to break in an steal these records in order to, I don’t know, print out bay killer posters with their faces or protest at the woman’s house.
My two cents.
Somehow I doubt the bill’s advocates will respond with better education and more readily available contraception.
This could also get the state into some legal hot water. It’s not a private form subject to doctor-patient confidentiality; it’s a state form that gets returned to a state agency. Say a woman checks off that it was a result of rape – she’s just reported a crime to the state. Wouldn’t they then be legally bound to investigate and prosecute it? I’m all for prosecuting more rapists, but I doubt that the bill’s supporters had drastically increasing the budget of the police departments in mind. And if they say it doesn’t, I’d love to see them try and defend that during a lawsuit.
The bill itself is pretty stupid. I might support something similar if abortion were treated as just another medical procedure, but of course it isn’t. Also, if it were really about gathering statistics and reducing the number of abortions needed, the questions edinblack outlined above wouldn’t be missing. They would form the bulk of the questionnaire.
I’m going to ignore the bill for a moment, though, and just concentrate on the poll. Does anyone else find it disturbing in the extreme that over 36,000 of our fellow citizens DO think that posting this info on the net would be a good thing?
Probably. Too many men seem to want this, which is simply stupid, even if you only look at the situation from the perspective of self-interest.
When women’s bodies are considered property, they will sell for a high price, and men must either lie, pay money, or sign a contract to receive access. When women are empowered and irrevocably own themselves, they will simply have sex with partners of their own choosing, in a manner of their own choosing.
Male and societal control over a woman’s body is stupid, even from a frat-boyish “I want to bang as many chicks as possible, as often as possible” perspective.
– Captain Mike
I agree with the commenters, including PZ, pointing out the ultimate goal of this to be to make abortion more difficult for women.
Also agree that gathering of such information and storing it in some database or other carries an inherent risk of data abuse.
I note the form has to be filled out by the doctor, not the woman, which is a nice way of making life more difficult for both.
An obvious lie, how would the age, race and marital status of the woman achieve that? While this data might be used for all sorts of shit, I rather think it would be a very useful tool for politicians and bureaucrats to confirm presupposed racial and social stereotypes.
Intrusion in privacy and sovereignty of women, nothing else.
Fuck the kids up with abstinence-only sex education, and then make them abort their accidental unwanted pregnancies with coathangers by making legal abortions close to impossible.Praise the lord, and god bless the USA !
Hang on a second. That stuff about “we’ll pass this even if we know it’s unconstitutional”… Why isn’t the entire Oklahoma legislature being thrown in the slammer for high fucking treason!?!
The chutzpa! It burns!
It’s called Poe’s Law and Ebert’s Fallacy.
:-D :-D :-D
#135
” ‘That is, except embarrassing women out of terminating her pregnancy, which is exactly what Lamb seems to intend to do’
Why draft the legislation? “I’m pro-life,” he said. “Oklahoma is a conservative state. We are a pro-life state, and I believe it’s important public policy to stand on the side of sanctity of life.””
And therefore absolutely fuck all to do with ‘gathering’ statistics!
The more they lie the easier it is to smell it!
Skatje, you’re so focussed on arguing about how safe the data is and how it can’t be used to identify anyone (both of which assertions are doubtful, as pointed out by others). However, you still have yet to address the fundamental issue of collecting the data in the first place. How can you believe that it is justified to a) place women in the position of having their most intimate decisions prodded and probed in order to even consult a doctor about a medical procedure? b) force doctors to administer such an invasive, unnecessary interrogation upon their patients?
That’s where the evil of this bill lies, not in the disputable security of the information gathered.
That’s wildly simplistic. First, obviously a large proportion of the population is not willing to sweep aside their religious convictions when it comes to questions of “morality,” and are extremely unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future. Second, believe it or not evn atheists can can ethical qualms about abortion. It really is unlike all other medical procedures in an important way.
I’m not asking them to do so, I’m asking the state to do so. You know, the entity that is supposed to represent people of all religions and none. The one that’s supposed to represent women as well as men. The one that’s not supposed to value a blastocyst over a person’s right to bodily autonomy.
Have you been to Oklahoma? [insert smilyface here]
I agree with you, for the record.
Because that’s not what high treason means. Treason, in the United States, is defined very restrictively by the Constitution (in fact, it’s the only crime to be defined by the Constitution):
The Oklahoma state legislature is neither levying war against the United States government nor giving aid and comfort to its enemies. They may be a bunch of dumbasses, but, in a free society, being stupid isn’t a crime. Nor is it a crime to enact legislation which is inconsistent with the Constitution.
@Caine 108 and Rorschach 138
There’s a nice sound-bite that appears in Abortion roster is blocked:
“…as Linda Meek, executive administrator of the Tulsa clinic Reproductive Services, brilliantly told NPR, “If they want to reduce the number of abortions, then they need to concentrate on educating women about preventing unwanted pregnancies, educating them about emergency contraception, birth control — and making birth control more accessible.” Yes, if only they were actually interested in education and prevention.” [emphasis in original quote]
I really wish these Xian kooks would find a theocracy and join it instead of trying to turn the USA into one and make us join it.
1. This is incorrect. Fundie xians have abortions at a rate higher than the general population. They are just hypocrits and liars about it. Data in post #96. When they get an abortion, they just rationalize it one way or another. “The only moral abortion is my abortion.”
2. It is OK for the religious to not favor abortion and to not have one. It is a free country. It is not OK to force your religious dogma on something else.
“Don’t believe in abortion. No problem. Don’t get one.”
This was a strawman argument. The issue isn’t abortion, this issue is about seeking power, control, and domination by one xian cult of the rest of the USA.
3. Some of my New Age friends are uncomfortable about abortion. That is why they were always careful with birth control and never had to think about getting one.
Really, if the fuckwit xian death cults were serious about reducing abortion, the solution is known and implemented in European countries.
A. Sex ed should be comprehensive, early, and repeated often. Contraception should be taught as many times as it takes.
B. It needs to be drilled into the kid’s heads that responsible adults plan their families. They either learn that early or find out the hard way anyway.
C. Contraceptives should be readily available and low cost or free to anyone who wants it. The kids will do what they do anyway, everyone should be ecstatic that they actually try to be responsible.
D. More research needs to be done in BC. There really isn’t that much money being spent on it for various reasons and there is certainly room for improvement.
In the USA, this sounds like fantasy. In European countries where it is done, the abortion rates are much lower than the USA. Of course, the fundies just push “abstinence only sex ed.” which has been proven not to work. In AOSE states, after a long decline the teen age pregnancy rates have started up. Ask Sarah Palin’s daughter how that worked.
The poll is not dumb, it is utterly and irredeemably evil.
The point is to encourage persecution of women who have abortion. No not just “shaming” them either.
Names and addresses? An invitation to lynching.
After all, such women are murderers, right?
@ ABdul Alhazred #149
Technically the names and addresses are “kept secret.” But with small sample sizes such as you find in small towns the other data (ethnic, economic, age, student status, etc.) creates a profile that few or only one will fit. That is to say the law is even more dishonest and underhanded than you think.
Hey, nobody says people have to fill out the questionnaire *honestly.*
Me, I’d tell them I was 103 years old, and already had 46 children, 12 of them by incest. What are they going to do, demand birth certificates?
Oh – And check EVERY BOX under the “reasons why.”
Give the assholes no useful data; they deserve none.
One additional observation related to the comments about the real intent being control:
When the Bush admin cranked up the anti-abortion action and the right-wing had both the Presidency as well as both houses under control you started seeing attacks on birth control. Birth control is something that most anti-abortion mouthpieces claim that they do not oppose. Right. Fundy pharmacists started to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control pills because it was “against their religion” to do so.
It’s not only about abortion. It’s about control. And birth control is next. What’s next after they get rid of birth control? Perhaps a return to using stocks? There’s that old-time public shaming! Oh, and what’s that thing called that clips on to the offender’s tongue? The puritan punishment for blasphemy? (Sheesh, why am I even asking? I’ll never be able to call it by whatever name it has given that they’ll have one on my 24/7 anyway).
If this was a scientifically designed questionnaire, aiming to get at real data with plenty of safeguards for the identity of the woman getting the abortion, and run in a scientific way, I could see the point in data gathering. But from what I’ve read of the proposed questionnaire, I have to agree with the majority: the intent isn’t data gathering, it’s harassment and punishment and shaming.
@#153:
What would a “scientifically-designed questionnaire” look like to you in this case?
Scold’s Bridle.
I’d be surprised if all the conservatives were in favor of this. It is fairly well known that those that oppose abortions for others still want one for themselves but theirs is different.
“The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion” by Joyce Arthur.
Skatje:
Maybe if this were required for other surgeries, you might have a point.
But it’s not required for other surgeries. I’ve had four surgeries in recent years, two of them in teaching hospitals. I have never–ever–had to fill out a form about why I was getting a surgery.
I don’t see men filling out surveys like these when they get vasectomies, either.
But it’s being done to women getting abortions. Gee… I wonder why that is, don’t you?
And that they’re not even asking about contraceptive use (which can and does fail)…
Sorry, this is purely an intimidation and obstruction tactic.
Nothing more.
They don’t give a shit about why women have abortions. If they did, people like this fuckwit Lamb wouldn’t be anti-abortion, and say the things they do about why women have one. They’d know the reasons are numerous and complicated, rather than their fantasy that it’s because women are vain, irresponsible sluts.
You’re giving them way too much credit. Really.
And according to that linked article, it was only used on women, not men. Hm.
@#157
I got a vasectomy in my early 20s, and the first doctor I saw did ask me to fill out a form like this, but it wasn’t required by the state. When I told him I was getting a vasectomy because my wife and I already had one child and her doctor had said she would die if she got pregnant again, he suggested that I might want to consider that she might be just my first wife, and I was still so young…
The second doctor I saw (who did the surgery) said “of course” when I explained my reasons. But he still asked and had me sign a form asserting so.
Miki Z,
I hope you share this with any feminist or secular humanist or atheist community you’re affiliated with. I have to leave briefly to go bring in some firewood and run a quick errand. I will be posting a recent experience I had last week as a woman in a poor rural area, who took a neighbor 90 miles to the nearest abortion provider that would treat her for an ectopic pregnancy that she could not get terminated here in our community. Women’s lives are disposable in this insane ideological culture war.
I usually don’t mention it because I don’t think it is at all equal, and I don’t want my words to be used as “it happens to men too!”. The doctor was not passing judgment on me by his questions, he was passing judgment on my wife. I was indignant, not shamed, and I have no reason to think that anyone on either side of the abortion issue would criticize me for getting a vasectomy.
I think that for any surgery that is not “if we take the time to talk about this there will be death or permanent injury” there should be a frank discussion with one’s doctor about the reasons for the surgery, expected results, and so on. A (small) part of the shame of laws like this is that it perverts the ability to have that dialogue honestly.
Skatje,
When I say “small town”, I don’t mean a 6,000 person megalopolis such as Morris. I mean something like my old home in the Berkshires, population 200. A real small town.
The bill provides that “[t]he Annual Abortion Report shall include, but not be limited to, the following information:
1. The number of induced abortions performed in the previous calendar year, broken down by month and county in which the abortion was performed;
2. The number of abortions classified by:
a. the state or foreign country of residence of the mother,
b. the age, marital status, and race of the mother, and
c. the number of years of education of the mother” [emphasis mine]
That, I contend, is information enough to start rumours flying, if not pinpoint individuals. Additionally, the information, in far greater detail, is stored on a “[s]table Internet website” meaning “a website that, to the extent reasonably practicable, is safeguarded from having its content altered other than by the State Department of Health.” [Again, emphasis mine.] Riiiight. As if there are no reasonably practiced anti-abortion hackers out there. Or idiot employees who hit the wrong couple of keys and make the information public.
BTW, even major hospitals frequently have insufficient security on their data bases. We’ve had scandals around here in the past few years when sensitive information was found floating around, especially the details of celebrity illnesses. [Want to bet the coroner’s report on Brittany Murphy’s death is on the intertubes as soon as it is finished? Or even before?]
Understand, too, that other medical procedures don’t have the political and emotional weight that abortion does. When was the last time an orthopaedist was shot for replacing a hip joint? Or a rheumatologist’s patients harangued and threatened as they walked by protesters?
It’s been pointed out by others, but the phrasing of the questions are present tense, implying that they are posed pre-procedure. Frankly, I’d bet they’d be harder to pose afterward; nothing requires the woman to respond. Given that doctors have to report even inquiries about abortion, the only time guaranteed to get the necessary answers would be during the initial consult, before an abortion. And Lamb is confident that those questions will stop women from getting abortions.
It’s just that it is so much easier to quantify and increase the number of “abortions stopped” if you make sure that there are plenty of unintended pregnancies. A bill which really wanted to reduce the number of abortions would focus on access to birth control and education about birth control (at least, that’s what the researchers have concluded, but they’re just a bunch of liberals, probably). But that bill would be so much harder to gloat about.
I think of lawmaking like volunteer firefighting: if you’re making sure that you can pull lots of people out of burning buildings as often as possible, you’re not a hero. You’re an arsonist.
Martin said:
I knew I’d seen that somewhere. I just thought it had happened again or something.
“I know women who have had abortions and who have not confided in many others. Some even keep it from family and closest friends.”
One woman I know had an abortion and, as far as I know, I am the only person she ever told about it.
AVSN, given your partiarchal and intolerant attitude, is it any wonder that “your women” haven’t fully diclosed to you?
An additional effect of legislation like this would be the further loss of abortion-provider-hours. That is, abortion services in some areas are already functionally restricted due to the lack of doctors willing to perform abortions. Planned Parenthood of Minnesota has to fly a doctor to our neighbor to the west, South Dakota, for a couple of days every other week. Without the visiting doctor, SD would be without a single abortion provider. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if OK is in a similar situation.
Requiring already scarce providers to spend additional hours filling out this survey (which they apparently have to do for inquiries, even) would further restrict the availability of those providers’ services.
Why is it that the fundies scream and stomp their feet about murdering babies, yet do NOTHING to promote women’s health (especially pregnant women)? The USA has the second-worse infant mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere, with Haiti being the worst. This is shameful and disgusting beyond words. If they want to maximize the lives of babies being saved, how about some decent prenatal care? It would seem consistent with the alleged “pro-life” stance to do so.
This same, old, stupid approach to the abortion dilemma is precisely the same as the stupid war on drugs. Addressing the issue from the demand side is MUCH more complicated, so they (conservatives) go after the supply side. So long as unwanted pregnancies and drug use alike are seen as moral failures (a religious viewpoint), we will never get smart about reducing the demand for drugs or abortions through education, support, and anti-poverty initiatives.
It’s really fascinating to see abortion conflated with infanticide or even child murder. The pro-choice stance is that up until a point (viability?), the fetus is more a woman’s body part than a baby; the pro-lifer believes “life begins at conception,” and therefore abortion is the murder of a human being, the deprivation of the inalienable right to life. I say that’s an arbitrary point. Gametes are alive. In my lifetime alone, I’ve murdered billions of microscopic potential baby Jesuses by various means which are probably inappropriate to discuss in mixed company.
[Do not post personal contact information here, ever–pzm]
Zeno, stop spewing that scientific drivel about Me! There are all those crazies around, and if one of them should believe you, Nietzsche may well turn out to be right, after all.
@tsg
You josher, you! Actually it reads, “except for my mistress.”
I wonder what AVSN would do if a “woman in his life” was raped? Would he force her to marry her rapist, if unmarried? Or would he disown her for having been raped? (Nobody heard you scream, so you must have wanted it, you little slut.)
Would he kill her, for “shaming” him?
Don’t even want to know…
How do you know someone in the State Dept of Health won’t abuse that information? That’s exactly the sort of thing that used to happen back in the day (officials persecuting citizens b/c of their personal biases) and you only need look around you today for numerous examples of police officers and health workers abusing the public trust when they run across the name of somebody they know… and have a grudge against.
I have a coworker who lost her home, her then-job, and her car over a relationship gone sour when a coworker at her former place of employment got confidential information about her grandchild in her job at the county health department. S*** happens.
All this talk about anti-abortion frothers has me wanting to carry a knife. To kill rapists.
Since all men are potential rapists, can’t I stab them all? I want to cut out the testicles first, then a nice stab in the heart. Or is it heart first? Don’t want to take unnecessary risks.
I bet Todd Lamm’s nuts bleed a lot.
Hang on there shatfat *shields croch*, don’t take it out on all men. Take it out on those who enable the worst of us men to do this.
shatfat, I get you’re angry, but homicidal fantasies (even in jest) are probably not a good idea here.
John, I should probably not post past my bedtime, then. :P
I’m not actually a violent person. Usually.
I read the “only moral abortion is my own” piece. Reminds me of the recent discussion on SBM about the “Mommy wars”. More women subtly trying to undermine other women? (You should pay/suffer/your offspring should suffer while my family is prosperous.)
Yeah, I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have posted my nut-knifing fantasies. Skatje’s comments were making me freak and I kinda let my id out of the cage there. *bends over to clean up the mess*