Have some rage with your morning coffee.

[jadedmusings]

Today in "Things I Wish I Didn't See First Thing In The Morning:"

New Oklahoma Law Will Put Details of All Abortions Online

Oh yes, you read that right.

A new Oklahoma law will require the details of every abortion to be posted on a public website. Proponents say this will prevent abortion — apparently by shaming and burdening women and doctors.

The law (which you can look at here — it's HR 1595) mandates that a 34-item questionnaire be filled out by abortion providers for each procedure. The questionnaire doesn't include the woman's name or "any information specifically identifying the patient," but it does ask for age, race, level of education, marital status, number of previous pregnancies, and the county in which the abortion was performed, information which opponents of the bill argue would be enough to identify a woman in a small town. The questionnaire also asks about the mother's reason for the abortion, her method of payment, and even what type of insurance she has, as well as whether the fetus received anaesthetic and whether there was "an infant born alive as a result of the abortion." [Emphasis Mine]

You know, my town isn't technically all that small (roughly 5,000 people), however, there are plenty of people who know more about me than they should. If they know I'm dating (and they do; thanks, Mom), if they had access to a website like this, it might not be hard for them to figure out who may or may not have had an abortion. Even if they were wrong, the rumors would fly and that can make life all that much harder for a person.

It puzzles me that women are infantalized so much. We're adults and yet the right to decide what can or can't happen with our bodies is taken away from us because some of us possess a uterus. A theoretical baby is more important than our careers, our livelihood, our ability to care for a child, and in some cases, even more important than our lives. Hell, for a few people it doesn't even matter if the act that caused the pregnancy was or was not consensual (see South Dakota's 2006 attempt at a no-exceptions abortion law). The moment sperm meets egg our bodies become someone else's property - usually old white men who then get to decide our fate. Control, control, control.

I suppose the good news in this case is that the law may not stand a chance.

Luckily, the bill's very broadness may be its downfall. The Center for Reproductive Rights is challenging it on the ground that it violates the Oklahoma Constitution because it "covers more than one subject" — a challenge that previously worked to strike down an abortion ultrasound law. Harris appeared sanguine about the Center's chances for getting the law struck down, which is lucky, because otherwise the women of Oklahoma will become data points in a system designed to advance an ideological goal.

Somehow that doesn't make me feel like I'll sleep any easier. The very fact that such a law even exists sends shivers down my spine.

Hat-tip shangy_feminism.

Comments

[dignam.livejournal.com]

Seems to me that the right to privacy that supports the legality of abortion in the first place, plus the confidentiality of medical records that every patient expects, makes this law a goner on the first challenge.

[loonylupinlover.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can't see how the hell they could get around HIPAA with this one. At my university besides the vet med program we have many human medical field programs and the one thing they all stress is that they can't talk about patients to each other (unless involved in the care of that patient) without consent, even vague things like "this 25-year-old woman had a horrible tumor, it was such a strange case" or whatever.

But you are right... the fact that someone is trying to push this through is nothing short of disgusting.