The war on women has a new front: doctors.
As Mother Jones reported Tuesday:
A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state's GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.
As Barb explained, South Dakota is already the most restrictive state in the nation when it comes to women's reproductive health. South Dakota women get one clinic, serviced once a week by an out-of-state doctor, which makes obtaining an abortion in South Dakota a hugely burdensome task. But that's not all.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, South Dakota also has waiting periods; parental notification for minors; mandatory "counseling" about the risks of abortion, as well as the admonition that the "abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being"; protection for physicians, nurses, and pharmacists to not only refuse to provide any abortion services, but also to refuse to even provide information about abortion.
And, just for good measure, the state also has a law on the books that, if Roe v. Wade is ever overturned, abortion will be immediately outlawed in South Dakota.
But for the warriors in the war on women, that's not enough. It never is. So now Rep. Jensen and supporters of this proposed legislation are endorsing a rationalization that has, until now, been promulgated only by the most extremist terrorists in the "pro-life" movement, such as the Army of God -- the group that proudly advocates murdering doctors in the name of saving fetuses. Scott Roeder, the man who gunned down Dr. George Tiller in his church, was one of the soldiers in that army, as were most of the other terrorists who are responsible for murdering doctors who provide reproductive health care to women. Most of them have tried, unsuccessfully, to argue that their terrorism was "justifiable homicide."
If Rep. Jensen and his accomplices in the South Dakota Legislature are successful, the terrorists' rationalization will become law, and those "pro-lifers" like Roeder could be free to murder doctors in the name of protecting the unborn.
Laws that restrict access to reproductive health care don't save lives; they kill women. And if Rep. Jensen has his way, they'll kill doctors too. The bill in South Dakota isn't about saving lives; it's about giving legal cover to terrorists who think it's wrong to take a life -- unless it's the life of a doctor. Then it's "justifiable."
The one thing this bill has made perfectly clear? There is absolutely nothing pro-life about the "pro-life" movement.