My Womb is Not a Vehicle for Your Agenda

I left lovely Sacramento, CA a few days ago to come home to Florida and visit with my mom and her 800 cats. (Just kidding – she only has four, two of which are purring next to me right now). I basically fled Florida at the age of 18 because I knew as an ambitious, left-of-the-left, queer liberal feminist,   my chances for personal and professional success would probably be greater elsewhere. At least one of the measures filed in this year’s Florida Legislature remind of why.

Sponsored by Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Palatka, HB 1097 would criminalize most abortions now allowed under state and federal law, increase penalties for physicians who perform such services and require pregnant women to receive more information on adoption.

The bill is 53 pages long (you can read the whole thing here), and plainly seeks to overturn Roe v. Wade. In the rambling findings, HB 1097 says it is “fundamentally unfair” to base the constitutionality of a law on a women’s liberty interest. Indeed, our right to privacy is certainly less valuable than the right to say, own a gun. Among the measure’s major provisions:

·         Makes induced abortions illegal and punishable by up to life in prison

·         Allows doctors and hospital to refuse to provide abortion services.

·         Continues judicial bypass that allows minors to seek a judge’s order instead of telling a parent or guardian.

·         Prohibits abortions resulting from pregnancies involving rape or incest.

·         Requires a second physician to sign-off on the procedure when a doctor believes an abortion was medically necessary to save the life of the mother.

·         Requires women to receive information on adoption as an abortion alternative

The sad thing is that the House Speaker here, Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, is actually taking this bill seriously. “He is a very passionate guy and he believes that needs to have some public discussion,” Cretul said of Van Zant. “I told him, ‘Work your bill, and we’ll see what happens.’” The state director of Planned Parenthood states the obvious demise of this bill, however: The bill is totally unconstitutional. "This is the most rigid and inflexible ban on abortion in the United States…Not only does it ban abortion, it also has absolutely no exceptions for rape or incest."

Perhaps Van Zant forgets that we are in the 21st century.