The Idiots are Coming

There are members of state legislatures around the country are making law about abortion from a remarkable wellspring of ignorance.  In Ohio a law was written to suggest the ectopic pregnancy (a implantation of zygote outside the uterus) can simply be plucked out and moved to the uterus for further development.  This is something that simply can't be done.  There is no medical technology to do that. But this ignorance is part of the thought process that leads to dangerous law. Another member of a western state house suggested that a woman could swallow a pill camera to take pictures of the developing fetus.  A right-wing noise machine voice said that if a father rapes his 12 year old and takes her for an abortion then the evidence goes away, but if she has the baby then there is something to convict the father about.  I am not sure how that makes sense but maybe he believes like the Alabama sponsor of the new Alabama law that basically makes all abortions criminal and all miscarriages suspect.  He said that you can still get an abortion BEFORE you know you are pregnant, in part because it takes time for the chromosomes to get together. There are also people making laws that think abortions require cutting open the uterus.   This level of ignorance that is driving some of the features of these laws is stunning.  I am reminded of little blue and pink groups in elementary school that showed us how the body works.  I then taught this at the university level and the in utero development section was quite simple and I wish these guys had taken my class.  I really can't get by the fact that there are people who think you can exam a developing fetus by swallowing a camera pill or that you can pluck a zygote that has implanted outside of the uterus and just re-implant it like a Lego.  I really can't understand how we have laws developed outside of facts and reality.  It would be like passing laws to make it illegal to own unicorns in the city or allowing your dragon to breath fire around children.  While there have been times in history where abortion debates were based on attempts to understand human develop and the cost/benefit analysis on how to restrict access while embracing life, today I feel the lawmakers who are trying to overturn the right to an abortion from the Roe v. Wade case care so little about facts and reality and that is dangerous.  This ignorance will lead to women dying, to women after the trauma of miscarriage having to prove it wasn't intentional, and to the rise is dangerous back alleys again.  This is wrong.  If you live in a state doing this tell them it is wrong.  If you want to debate abortion get an education and if you think these new laws are about sanctity of life you are being fooled.