Academic OB/GYN

Today a bill passed the Oklahoma State House making it a felony for a physician to perform an abortion.  Are you serious?

I assume that the governor will veto this bill.  At least I hope she does.  Because when she was sworn in as governor, despite being a conservative, she swore to uphold the constitution the United States of America.  And I have never seen an anti-abortion bill so obviously unconstitutional.   Roe V Wade protected women from laws that made abortion unduly difficult to obtain, and putting doctors in jail for doing an abortion certainly fits that description.

It saddens me that states continue to pass laws that don’t even pass the sniff test for unconstitutionality. It means that the legislators in the state have completely abdicated their responsibility towards our country.  Even the most anti-abortion legislator should stand up and say ‘sounds good to me, but since this is obviously against our country’s constitution, I am voting no’.  Instead they jam up the legislature and the judicial system with challenges,  and eventually the law gets ruled out by the courts.

Can’t we just skip that step?  I’d love to see a system where a state is punished for passing a law that is obviously unconstitutional.  The court system could decide when that has happened, and do something bad to the state.  Maybe the governor gets a dock in pay, or has to pay for the court costs out of their own pocket.

Want to make abortion illegal in this country?  You suck, for the first thing.  But after you finished sucking, then you have to get to the business of amending the Constitution of the United States.   And given than 1 in 3 women in this country has had an abortion in their life, and it remains the most common procedure performed for humans on the planet, I think you’re going to have a hard time getting that one through.  And until you do, stop trying to get around that requirement by passing bills that are just going to get reversed.  Its a waste of this country’s time.  Worse, its black mark on our entire society that so many people care so little about a woman’s right to control what happens in her own body.  Shiver me timbers.