Missouri Judge Won't Allow Blatant Lies About Abortion Amendment In Ballot Summary
Missouri Judge Won't Allow Blatant Lies About Abortion Amendment In Ballot Summary
No, it will not make it legal to kill women during an abortion.
Do anti-abortion-rights advocates actually oppose abortion, specifically, or do they just have really bad reading comprehension skills? I’m starting to wonder if it might be the latter, because somehow they keep getting really confused about what abortions even are, what those who support abortion rights are asking for, what ballot measures say, who they are, where they are, what day it is, etc., etc., the list goes on.
For example: A Missouri judge this week had to tell Republicans that the language they wanted to use for a summary of an abortion ballot initiative was unacceptable, on the grounds that they were straight up lying about it.
The Missouri Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative is a relatively straightforward ballot initiative that would guarantee the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. It specifically allows the General Assembly (the state Lege) to “enact laws that regulate the provision of abortion after Fetal Viability provided that under no circumstance shall the Government deny, interfere with, delay, or otherwise restrict an abortion that in the good faith judgment of a treating health care professional is needed to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”
It does not say jack shit about malpractice. And yet …
The proposed summary, written by Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, was so egregiously off-base that Cole County Circuit Judge Cotton Walker — a white, male, Republican judge in Missouri whose actual first name is “Cotton” — threw it out entirely.
A “yes” vote will enshrine the right to abortion at any time of a pregnancy in the Missouri Constitution. Additionally, it will prohibit any regulation of abortion, including regulations designed to protect women undergoing abortions and prohibit any civil or criminal recourse against anyone who performs an abortion and hurts or kills the pregnant woman.
A “no” vote will continue the statutory prohibition of abortion in Missouri.
If passed, this measure may reduce local taxes while the impact to state taxes is unknown.
This bore no resemblance to the proposed amendment, which did not, in fact, include a “It’s fine to kill or maim someone you are performing an abortion on” clause anywhere in there.
What the text of the act actually says is that you cannot penalize someone for having or performing an abortion, which is a very, very different thing:
“No person shall be penalized, prosecuted, or otherwise subjected to adverse action based on their actual, potential, perceived, or alleged pregnancy outcomes, including but not limited to miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion. Nor shall any person assisting a person in exercising their right to reproductive freedom with that person's consent be penalized, prosecuted, or otherwise subjected to adverse action for doing so.”
That sure doesn’t sound anything at all like it would “prohibit any civil or criminal recourse against anyone who performs an abortion and hurts or kills the pregnant woman.”
There is a very big difference between not prosecuting doctors for performing a medical procedure and and not prosecuting them for malpractice. For instance, I am reasonably sure that there are no laws on the books anywhere regarding splenectomies, but if your doctor accidentally removes your liver instead of your spleen and you die (as happened recently in Florida), your relatives can definitely sue everyone involved in that.
Nothing in this law that says that if you go in to have an abortion and instead of removing the fetus, they remove your left leg, that you cannot sue the doctor or the hospital involved. That is just a given. (Also, not what happened in the Florida case, but always make sure that your patient ID bracelet matches your chart!)
The new language, written by Judge Walker himself, reads:
“A ‘yes’ vote establishes a constitutional right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptives, with any governmental interference of that right presumed invalid; removes Missouri’s ban on abortion; allows regulation of reproductive health care to improve of maintain the health of the patient; requires the government not to discriminate, in government programs, funding, and other activities, against persons providing or obtaining reproductive health care; and allows abortion to be restricted or banned after fetal viability except to protect the life or health of the woman.”
See! It’s not that hard to be honest!
If having an abortion is so objectionable to these people, in and of itself, it’s truly a wonder why they feel they have to lie about it so much, why they have to add on all these extra untrue things in order to get people on their side? Why do they feel they have to claim that anyone supports “post-birth abortion” or that an abortion rights amendment would nullify malpractice laws?
Perhaps they realize they can’t win if they don’t cheat, but that doesn’t say a whole lot for their “cause,” now does it?
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Ta, Robyn. No notes.
Taxes? That’s what they’re going with?