I once thought about getting into the game, but not anymore.
I'm talking about the ultimate game-- politics. It happened innocently enough. I interviewed a couple of local politicos a few years back and they were so amateurish that my knee-jerk reaction was, "Oh, come on."
And, now, my aghast is extended to my state legislature.
According to CBS News, Tennessee State Representative Stacy Campfield has introduced legislation that would require death certificates for aborted fetuses. And, it is arguably the worst idea since Mr. Hitler said to Mrs. Hitler, "I'm in the mood for love."
Mr. Campfield, a Republican who apparently doesn't have enough to do, hasn't bothered to work out the blatantly obvious. Before a person can have a death certificate, it is really helpful if they have a certificate of live birth, which aborted fetuses don't have. That's just common sense. Before you can die, you have to have lived. The only thing scarier than Mr. Campfield's line of logic (or lack thereof) is the possibility that he has thought about it, and is simply trying to push the envelope on the definition of life.
Campfield's proposed legislation also violates privacy rights. By having death certificates attached to abortions, the women who have abortions will become the subject of public record.
And, that makes it bad law. In our system of government, federal law trumps state law. And, federal HIPAA laws are pretty air-tight on what can and cannot be released publicly about an individual's medical records.
So, let's just cut to the chase. Campfield apparently wants to shame women into not having abortions. Granted, he has left himself a loophole in it, in case he gets someone pregnant. The legislation gives abortion providers 10 days to file the death certificate. So, if Mr. Campfield gets one of his staffers pregnant, he can ship her to an out-of-town abortion clinic, use a false name, pay cash, and leave the abortion provider with nothing to report.
But, the damage would still be done.
And, apparently, Rep. Stacey Campfield is really into hurting people.
TWH
www.sushituesday.com
Tim Hooker is an English professor in Tennessee. He is the author of three books: "Rocket Man: A Rhapsody of Short Stories," "Duncan Hambeth: Furniture King of the South," and "Looking For A City." His politics are progressive liberal; his (more...)
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Typical example of another non thinking non feeling non caring republican and maybe also another product of the maniacal religious nut jobs that ooze out of the woodwork.
They certinally seems to somehow share the same defective genetic gene pool. Makes one wonder what the people who elected these weirdos were on when they made their choices.
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Rae (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 230 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Feb 18, 2007 at 4:33:46 PM
is good and very much to the point. Such'laws' are unnecessary, they trample on the equality of men and women and are introduced for the evil purposes.
But there is another aspect, unfortunately. Without any fingerpointing abortion, take it or leave it (if we exclude special cases) is the forceful termination of otherwise normal development and emerging of the human being.
It is, thus not some routine procedure- it is an exercise of the conscious decision to use the unnatural intrusion into the natural process, the one involving not one but two. I am not judging- vasectomy can be considered something similar, although here there seem to be less controversy because man does not impede on the development of another human being. But woman does and somehow it has to be acknowledged as an unfortunate event, something which is not a routine. Maybe a voluntary ritual, something like that.. Judge we not but sad we are and in sadness we are all equal. Thus we acknowledge that we are not perfect, that we still are unfortunate enough that the best thing in the world- bringing in the new life-is rejected by our fellow-humans. It is our collective guilt.
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Mark Sashine (72 articles, 19 quicklinks, 269 diaries, 4101 comments [131 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Feb 19, 2007 at 9:04:27 AM
Thanks for writing.
I'm glad to see you can draw a difference between the issues. If you want to talk about abortion, talk about abortion. But, it is dishonest to try to sneak in an abortion agenda under another name.
TWH
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Tim Hooker (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 9 comments) on Monday, Feb 19, 2007 at 12:23:46 PM
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