'Nobody else's goddamn business'

As Fritz reported yesterday, a bill that would require a woman notify the father of her baby that she intends on having an abortion is making its way through the state's channels.

House Bill 3199 is something much like the provision that was determined unconstitutional in Planned Parenthood v. Casey back in 1992. The Supreme Court found that requiring a woman to notify the father placed an undue burden on her right to an abortion.

Tennessee's incarnation of this ridiculous abortion restriction is, in a nutshell, this:

Physicians who perform abortions on women (18 and older) without first receiving from the woman a signed statement indicating that the woman has notified the man who got her pregnant that she intends to have an abortion will have committed a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of $5,000. The woman, if found to have submitted a false or incomplete statement, or to not have submitted a statement at all, is subject to a Class A misdemeanor charge and a $2,000 fine.

The text of the provision reads:

It is an offense for a physician to knowingly perform an abortion on a woman who is eighteen (18) years of age or older unless the physician has received from the woman a signed statement indicating that the woman has notified the man by whom she is pregnant that she intends to have an abortion.

The bill makes exceptions for women who have become pregnant by rape (and have reported the rape to the police) and women who are unable to notify the father or unable to identify the father. In either case, the woman must file a written notice containing her name and the name of the father (or suspected father) with the Department of Child Services within 24 hours prior to the abortion. Their names will be placed on "the department's putative father registry."

There is also an exception for women whose lives are in danger because of the pregnancy.

This bill poses a significant threat to the autonomy of women in this state to make personal medical decisions without government interference. I've blown this trumpet many times before; you all know the reasons this is unacceptable and should be struck down. This is just the latest in a series of ongoing battles.

This piece by Anne Lamott sums up the basics:

I said I could not believe that men committed to equality and civil rights were still challenging the basic rights of women. I thought about all the photo-ops at which President Bush had signed legislation limiting abortion rights, surrounded by 10 or so white, self-righteous married men, who have forced God knows how many girlfriends into doing God knows what. I thought of the time Bush appeared on stage with children born from frozen embryos, children he calls "snowflake babies," and of the embryos themselves, which he calls the youngest and most vulnerable Americans.

And somehow, as I was answering, I got louder and maybe even more emphatic than I actually felt, and said it was not a morally ambiguous issue for me at all. I said that fetuses are not babies yet; that there was actually a real difference between pro-abortion people, like me, and Klaus Barbie.

Then I said that a woman's right to choose was nobody else's goddamn business.

Read the bill here (PDF) and click here to find your representative, and then write, call, fax, e-mail -- whatever it takes -- to get this outrageous bill off the table.

There's also more info over at Women's Health News.