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Wednesday, July 3, 2013
News / Opinion N.C. Senate's extreme anti-abortion sneak attack
Posted By John Grooms on Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 2:11 PM
N.C. Sen. Buck Newton thinks he's slick. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary 1 Committee pulled a flagrantly dishonest move yesterday when his committee unwrapped its newest nasty surprise: adding Texas-style restrictions on abortion clinics, which would probably close down all abortion clinics in the state, according to Planned Parenthood. The bill's supporters, as always, say they're restricting women's reproductive rights for reasons of "safety" because, of course, they are soooo concerned about women's health.
The move has shocked followers of North Carolina politics and resulted in hundreds of protesters yelling, "Shame, shame, shame, shame" from the visitors galleries this morning when the full Senate passed the bill. In a legislative session that has been so radical, such a cornucopia of crappy, backward-looking laws that it has prompted massive national news coverage and made the state a laughingstock, it took a truly outrageous move like Buck Newton & Co.'s to trigger today's irate disbelief. And outrageous it is: a middle-of-the-night move on a previously unannounced bill related to a major issue, proposed during July 4 week in hopes that no one would notice. Moreover, anti-abortion lobbyists were told about the bill and allowed to sit in on the committee meeting; neither pro-choice lobbyists nor pro-choice lawmakers were told about it. To top it off, the new measures were slipped into another bill dealing with, of all things, keeping Sharia law out of N.C. courts (this way, the grumpy hicks-in-suits running the show in Raleigh can beat up on two different groups the lawmakers have no respect for - women and Muslims).
U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan condemned the bill, saying she is "appalled." At this point, the pressure is on Gov. Pat McCrory, who has said he would not sign into law any new restrictions on abortion. This morning, after the Senate vote, McCrory said he was "concerned" about the way the bill was rammed through the legislative body, but he gave no indication whether he will sign or veto the bill if and when it reaches his desk. National publicity about the Senate's vote has moved the state's rancid political state even further into the public eye, with The Atlantic, The Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC noting once again that the General Assembly has been hijacked by hateful goobers on the warpath (OK, those weren't the exact words used). NBC's political blog says now that the political situation in N.C. is "the best - and most important - political story that no one has probably heard about." I assume they meant that no one outside North Carolina has heard about our state's political trainwreck, because every person I know here are all sick to their guts of the Tarheel Taliban and their spiteful bullshit.
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