NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The Louisiana House of Representatives, which dares to fight abortion more than lawmakers in any other state, is debating a bill to make women who terminate their pregnancies prosecuted for murder .
Republican Republican Danny McCormick has called for a debate in the House of Representatives on his bill Thursday afternoon, despite growing opposition from traditional proponents of abortion rights and longtime enemies of legal abortion. The Louisiana governor has said he will veto abortion, and Louisiana’s right to life and the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops are against it.
It is absurd to assume that a woman will be imprisoned for abortion, “Governor John Bell Edwards, a devout Catholic and Democrat who has long since broken with his party on abortion, said in a press release on Wednesday. .
“Our long-standing policy is not to treat women vulnerable to abortion as criminals,” a Louisiana statement on the right to life said.
Catholic bishops said they were “unequivocally” against the bill. And the National Committee on the Right to Life on Thursday issued an “open letter to state lawmakers” that did not specifically mention the Louisiana bill, but said that “any measure to criminalize or punish women is not in favor of life and we stand firm against such efforts. “
McCormick disagrees, saying that a woman who has had an abortion should be in the same legal position as a woman who takes the life of a child after giving birth. “When I give equal protection to the unborn, that’s the opportunity,” he said in a telephone interview Wednesday night.
McCormick’s bill has been rigorously scrutinized in the light of a leak last week in a draft US Supreme Court opinion showing that the Supreme Court is preparing to overturn decisions protecting the constitutional right to abortion.
There are still no indications that lawmakers in other states are adopting similar legislation. In Idaho, Republican Heather Scott has proposed persecuting women who have abortions, but a commission chairman said Friday he would not allow it. “There are still sensible people in the legislature who will ensure that extreme bills like this are not heard,” said Brent Crane.
“I will not hear this bill in my committee, which puts a woman on trial for murder. If you take that part out of the bill, if you judge the doctor for murder, which corresponds exactly to what we already have in the Idaho statutes, then we can talk about hearing your bill. Crane said on Idaho public television.
McCormick unveiled his bill in March in a bid to end abortion, no matter what each court does.
In addition to rewriting the Homicide Statute to include abortion, he declares that any federal law, ordinance or court decision that allows abortion is invalid and that any judge who blocks the application of the provisions of the bill may be subject to of impeachment.
Members of the committee that proposed the bill last week have expressed doubts about its constitutionality. Edwards called it “clearly unconstitutional.”
Edwards joined critics of the bill, saying it criminalized certain types of contraception and parts of the in vitro fertilization process. McCormick said Thursday that forms of contraception that do not destroy the fertilized egg will not be affected. He also disputes that the bill will recently criminalize some aspects of in vitro fertilization, citing a state law that already grants rights to an “in vitro fertilized human egg”.
Anti-abortion legislation is usually easily passed by the Louisiana legislature, but strong opposition from some abortion advocates may intensify attempts to thwart the measure or change it dramatically.
Louisiana already has laws on books criminalizing abortion, including an “trigger law” that ensures it will be a crime if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, a 1973 ruling establishing abortion rights. The statute appears to exempt women from prosecution, although some abortion advocates suggest they need to be tightened.
McCormick said existing laws were inadequate to give the fetus equal protection from the law. “This is a debate we need to have in Louisiana,” he said. “There are good people on both sides of the debate.”
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Associated Press reporter Holly Ramer contributed to this report from Concord, New Hampshire.
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