Imagine a world in which politicians dictate to doctors that they must lie to their patients
by digby
Actually you don’t have to. The Kansas House of representative passed this law today:
• A sales tax on all abortions. Even rape victims would have to pay the tax, which could be as high as 6.3%. Despite their objections to millionaires paying more taxes, Republicans feel it’s okay to tax women for making a personal decision about their own bodies. This makes abortion more expensive.
• A personhood measure that would define life as beginning at conception, which would almost certainly make abortion equivalent to murder and outlaw all abortion in the state of Kansas. Many forms of contraception could also be banned.
• A measure that significantly limits abortions in the third trimester.
• A provision that bans women from claiming abortion insurance coverage and services on their taxes.
• Doctors are hereby ordered to tell women that abortion causes breast cancer, which is a damned lie.
• Doctors are also shielded from lawsuits if they withhold critical health information from pregnant women that could cause them to decide to have an abortion. In other words, they don’t have to tell women about the health of the fetus they carry and don’t have to tell women about any problems with the pregnancy.
Such measures would make it nearly impossible for women to get an abortion in the state of Kansas. They would severely restrict a woman’s right to make her own health decisions. And the bill forces women to submit to the will of men. This is by far the most dangerous anti-abortion bill in the country and puts the lives of women in danger. Republicans are declaring that abortion is a cause of cancer despite the fact that real science has proved otherwise, and yet, they are forcing doctors to falsely tell pregnant women that if they get an abortion, cancer could follow, even though many top health organizations have proven that such a connection is a total myth.
Why should that stop them?
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