I wasn't sure if I should cover this, at first. It's just weird. But as a feminist blogger in South Carolina, I figured it is my unpleasant task to do so. This sounds like more right-to-life grandstanding to me. Note last paragraph; this law was apparently inspired by ONE case back in 2003. And there is no proof that this fetus was the result of abortion or miscarriage.
I think it's another way to make people more uncomfortable with abortion, basically a propaganda ploy.
Barack Obama supports this? He must not think it will cost him any political support, since it's far too arcane to make any real difference.
"Born alive" bill moves a step closer to law
By Tim Smith • CAPITAL BUREAU • May 6, 2009
Greenville News
Does anyone else believe this is anything other than pro-life grandstanding?
COLUMBIA – A bill that would prevent a fetus from being thrown away as medical waste or to die outside the mother’s body as a form of abortion moved one step closer to law this morning after it passed a Senate subcommittee.
Senators amended the House-passed bill to note that nothing in the legislation affects state or federal laws on abortion or affects generally accepted medical standards.
The “born alive” bill now moves to the full Judiciary Committee.
The legislation defines a person as anyone who is breathing or who is born with a beating heart, no matter the means of birth or whether the result of an abortion.
Orin Smith, president of the Palmetto Family Council, told the committee the bill is rooted in a federal law passed in 2002 as the result of aborted fetuses that were allowed to die. He said both former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama supported the federal legislation.
“I think we have broad support for the bill,” he said.
Sen. Brad Hutto, an Orangeburg Democrat whose wife is a physician, said he does not understand the need for the bill because it does not “change anything.”
Janet Scouten, director of research for Smith’s organization, said the bill would provide “an additional level of protection.”
Holly Gatling, executive director of S.C. Citizens for Life, a pro-life group, pointed to a report in 2003 in Columbia of a fetus found at a laundry company, wrapped in a blanket.