I don't know if I've told you people here this, but I have evidence that my friends are trying to kill me. What is this evidence? Well, they keep sending me links like this (just a warning, Salon's links kind of suck, so once you get to Broadsheet you'll have to dig for the article "The details of your abortion online?"). See? Clear evidence that my friends are trying to induce either a heart attack or stroke. Actually, they just think I'm funny when I'm angry.
So, this law in Oklahoma, the most recent intended agent of my untimely demise, requires that abortion providers put the results of a questionnaire on every abortion they perform up on a website for the entire universe to see. A few of the things it asks for are the date of the abortion, the county in which it was performed and the doctor's name (at the very end). Other questions include the race of the mother (human, duh), number of live births, miscarriages, etc... and also concern the mother's relationship health and status. Honestly, a bunch of stuff that is nobody's business. (This is me fighting a losing battle with the profanity struggling to escape while I write this.)
The question that makes my head explode is: "Was there an infant born alive as the result of the abortion?" Does that happen? In the real world, I mean. Not the Anti-choice fantasy land where healthy, fully formed infants are ripped screaming from the birth canal to be happily dismembered by horn-having abortionists who snicker gleefully while twirling handlebar mustaches. I mean in the real honest to gosh world we all actually LIVE IN. I guess it might during a late term abortion, but those are exceptionally rare and only performed when the mother's life is in danger or the fetus is already dead.
You can go read the law, and check out the questionnaire yourself.
For women living in small towns, which is most of Oklahoma, the inclusion of the questions about county, education, marital status, live births, miscarriages etc... would make it incredibly easy for people to identify her, or misidentify her, as someone who had an abortion. Seriously. I mean, you read on there that someone with X number of live children had an abortion on this date in this county, with this doctor, she's X race, went to grad school, etc... Yeah... how easy is that going to be for someone to go, "You know, Betty Sue went to 'see her grandmother' in Jackson County last month, and it says here that says that someone with the same number of kids, who also went to college and..." So, yeah, not only is it going to out and shame women who have had abortions, as the ass-haberdashers who wrote the law intend, but it's going to cause a lot of static for women who didn't, but who just happened to visit Aunt Cindy Lou at exactly the wrong fucking time.
Trust me, I'm not for these jerks being able to use this to victimize women who have had abortions. Not in the least. Honestly, I think they alone and the grief it will cause them is more than enough reason to horsewhip the folks who penned this, if you'll excuse the expression, abortion of a law. The fact that they either do not realize or do not care that it's going to mess with women who don't have abortions, too, is just the pickle on the shit sandwich.
The fact that they never considered that their shaming tactics could harm the "good" ones as well as all of us harlots who foolishly believe we should have agency over our own bodies like actual people, further demonstrates that they really don't give a shit about women. Just punishing us.
Postscript: The Center for Reproductive Rights has started legal action against this law. Give them money.
Mickey Schulz is a guest author for the California NOW blog; her opinions are not necessarily those of California NOW. Copyright Mickey Schulz, with permission granted to California NOW for use on this site.
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