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Friday, June 02, 2006

Blanco Signs Abortion Ban In Louisiana

Awesome...

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Thursday that she'll sign a near-total ban on abortion -- without exceptions for rape or incest victims -- that is nearing final legislative passage.

The Louisiana House and Senate have approved the measure by Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, but it awaits one final approval from the Senate of House changes before it reaches Blanco's desk. It only would allow abortion in cases where the woman's life is in danger or when childbirth would permanently harm her health.

The bill could only go into effect if the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision is overturned.

"I anticipate signing that bill. It's got a safety measure for extreme situations for the life of the mother and some other health issues," Blanco said in an interview with The Associated Press.

She said she believed an exception for rape and incest victims to get an abortion, a proposal rejected by both the House and Senate, would have "been reasonable," but she said she wouldn't reject the bill for that reason.

"The Legislature has spoken," Blanco said.


The law was proposed by a Democrat legislator and signed into law by a Democrat governor. You wouldn't think those Dems. down there are maybe pandering to their constituency in an election year, would you? Sort of like Howard Dean pretending like the Democrats oppose gay marriage?

Well Blanco certainly needs to pander after her total failure as a leader during and after hurricane Katrina. Since then she's been consistently ranked at the bottom for approval among the various state governors.

It would seem as though this law, however, is not quite as ardent as the one South Dakota recently passed. This Louisiana law doesn't directly challenge Roe vs. Wade but is instead merely poised to take effect should that ruling be overturned. That's something of a cop-out, I think. It would have been nice to see Louisiana join in with South Dakota in challenging the ruling.

On a related note, I've always wondered why everyone thinks there should exceptions for rape and/or incest in any abortion ban. The reporter who wrote the above story certainly thinks there should be with the absolutely breathless "without exceptions for rape or incest victims!" in the opening line, but I think the inclusion of such things would be inconsistent with a pro-life stance.

Pro-lifers believe that when a woman becomes pregnant a person is conceived, one who merits legal protections (such as the "no shall any person...be deprived of live...without due process of law" part of the 5th amendment). I don't see why those legal protections should be null and void just because the mother was raped or had sex with a relative. Certainly those crimes have nothing to do with the child, so I don't see why the child should get a death sentence because of them.

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