What’s going on with North Dakota?
The Attack of the Killer Surplus
By GAIL COLLINS, NYT
It’s not often we stop to ask ourselves: “What’s going on with North Dakota?” But I believe this is the moment.
The State Legislature has been in a kind of anti-abortion meltdown, piling up bills with what-the-heck abandon. The House and Senate passed a “fetal heartbeat” bill that would prohibit abortions when a woman was about six weeks into pregnancy. They also each passed a “fetal pain” bill that would prohibit abortions at around 20 weeks. Plus a resolution giving fetuses the rights of personhood, which would not only prohibit abortion altogether, but would also outlaw some forms of infertility treatment and contraception. There was also a bill banning abortions on the basis of sex preference or possible genetic defects, none of which would be detectable by the time abortions were already prohibited under some of the other bills.
The governor pretty much signed everything they threw at him. “Folded like a tent in a blizzard,” said an editorial in Fargo’s daily paper. Opponents pointed out that while the House was busy protecting fetuses, it had killed a bill providing free milk or juice to impoverished schoolchildren who had actually been born. The Senate rectified that embarrassment, sort of. “They’re taking the money we give to school districts for at-risk children and saying you have to use that money to provide juice and milk programs,” said Corey Mock, an assistant minority leader in the House.
Things are in flux in North Dakota. Anything could happen with the milk money. Or the amendment to one anti-abortion bill that would end a federally funded sex education program for homeless teenagers. The bills the governor signed will probably be challenged in court, including a law requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges with a local hospital, which could doom the state’s lone abortion provider, the Red River Women’s Clinic.
(More here.)
It’s not often we stop to ask ourselves: “What’s going on with North Dakota?” But I believe this is the moment.
The State Legislature has been in a kind of anti-abortion meltdown, piling up bills with what-the-heck abandon. The House and Senate passed a “fetal heartbeat” bill that would prohibit abortions when a woman was about six weeks into pregnancy. They also each passed a “fetal pain” bill that would prohibit abortions at around 20 weeks. Plus a resolution giving fetuses the rights of personhood, which would not only prohibit abortion altogether, but would also outlaw some forms of infertility treatment and contraception. There was also a bill banning abortions on the basis of sex preference or possible genetic defects, none of which would be detectable by the time abortions were already prohibited under some of the other bills.
The governor pretty much signed everything they threw at him. “Folded like a tent in a blizzard,” said an editorial in Fargo’s daily paper. Opponents pointed out that while the House was busy protecting fetuses, it had killed a bill providing free milk or juice to impoverished schoolchildren who had actually been born. The Senate rectified that embarrassment, sort of. “They’re taking the money we give to school districts for at-risk children and saying you have to use that money to provide juice and milk programs,” said Corey Mock, an assistant minority leader in the House.
Things are in flux in North Dakota. Anything could happen with the milk money. Or the amendment to one anti-abortion bill that would end a federally funded sex education program for homeless teenagers. The bills the governor signed will probably be challenged in court, including a law requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges with a local hospital, which could doom the state’s lone abortion provider, the Red River Women’s Clinic.
(More here.)
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