They are at it again over at the Ledge. They are not content with debating such weighty matters such as whether to issue proclamations extolling the virtues of Thomas Paine or congratulating Barack Obama on his ascension to the Presidency. They do not pause for rest and succor after struggling with the concept of not criminalizing packing a gun in church. No. Now they are back trying to outlaw so-called "partial birth abortions" in Arkansas.
No matter that it is legally superfluous. There is no evidence that such a procedure was performed in Arkansas last year. Further, such a procedure is already prescribed by federal law. The backers of this proposed legislation want to make it even tougher than its federal counterpart in that it authorizes the State Medical Board to investigate any doctors that perform such procedures and it calls for potential jail time of 6 years as opposed to 2 in the federal version.
The Democrat-Gazette reported that one of the Representatives at the hearing yesterday before the House Public Health, Welfare, and Labor Committee asked the perfectly sensible question of why the bill as written imputes no liability to the mother who authorizes such a procedure.
" We were not trying to criminalize the woman," replied Martha Adcock, the attorney for the Family Council who is pushing this bill.
The other interesting exchange came when the spokesperson for Planned Parenthood excoriated some members of the Committee for leaving when the ACLU was testifying against the measure.
"We owe her (the witness) nothing when it comes to murder," explained Rep. Billy Gaskill of Paragould.
OK. Let's think this through. If a partial birth abortion is indeed murder, why the hell not "criminalize the woman?" Let's assume that the son of a bitch that set the trap for that poor doctor in West Memphis is not the same guy who built it. Of course, this also requires us to assume they are guys and the device that exploded was a home made device like an IED.
By the reasoning of some of the apparent backers of the bill before the Committee, we should then penalize the manufacturer of the device that exploded up there but not the guy who set the trap. Which is manifestly not the way the criminal law works.
So why use such incendiary terms like "murder?" And why not impute liability to the woman as well as the doctor performing the procedure? Because the backers of this bill don't think they could get a more draconian bill passed. Either that or they don't much believe it themselves.
And why even waste time on a measure that is manifestly legally superfluous? Here's why: Fooling around with emotionally charged bullshit that has no practical impact other than to make its proponents seem foolish is a hell of a lot easier than trying to find money for jails, schools and trauma centers. It's a hell of a lot easier than trying to solve real problems. That's why they waste time with stuff like this and packing guns in church.
And we voted to bring these guys back to Little Rock every year? How did that happen?
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3 comments:
I voted to have the ledge meet every year. After reading about the crap they're voting on, I want to take my vote back.
Don't get me started. At the very least I'll get started on my own blog. You seem to be a family site.
I'll tell ya how it happened...most people didn't know what they were voting for when they chose. I for one, had no idea that that was even up for consideration until I got to the booth. It kind of shocked me as I felt that I was an informed voter, keeping up with the news and all (TMFW blog included.) This seemed to come out of left field and before you knew it, the people checked the box "yes". What a waste of time and money.
And I can't even begin to describe my disgust with the outcome of Act 1.
Floatydevice.
The "innocent" ballot title confused a lot of people that hadn't kept up and read the thing before hand. I couldn't believe it at first when I saw that it had passed.
So far this bunch of legislators has gained national attention for their defeat of the first resolution congratulating President Obama, they have wasted time debating a Thomas Paine day, a Ronald Regan day, Partial Birth Abortions, Guns in church, etc. Other than the tobacco tax they haven't accomplished anything in the first 30 days.
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