Here's what it's doing: Iowa Abortion Bill Would Criminalize All Abortion, Sentence Doctors To Life In PrisonAll abortions would be classified as feticides, a class A felony punishable by life imprisonment without chance for parole, under a new bill introduced on Wednesday by Iowa State Representative Kim Pearson, a Tea Party Republican. Pearson’s bill states:
Under the bill, doctors who perform abortions could spend life in prison [without chance of parole] and doctors who attempt to perform an abortion (but don’t go through with it, for some unclear reason) would be charged with the class B felony of 25 years in prison. On the one hand, according to the blog Think Progress, Democrats in Iowa said the bill is a waste of time because it “would almost certainly” violate Roe v. Wade, the central principle being that a woman’s medical decisions are subject to privacy. But that’s hardly a reason to be reassured: other anti-abortion lawmakers in Iowa are currently debating a separate anti-abortion bill which would require a doctor to show a woman a sonogram before an abortion for absolutely no medical reason. So, it’s tempting to dismiss such an extreme bill from State Rep. Pearson’s as the work of a lone operator but woman-controlling bills by anti-abortion politicians are popping up like some twisted Whack-A-Mole game all across the United States. |
