Well in today’s you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me news, South Dakota has introduced a bill expanding “justifiable” homicide to include killings intended to prevent harm to fetuses. This, then, could make it legal to murder abortion providers.

Mother Jones has the full scoop:

The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state’s GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state’s legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person “while resisting an attempt to harm” that person’s unborn child or the unborn child of that person’s spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman’s father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one.

South Dakota has some of the harshest restrictions on abortion, and the state has been without a provider since 1994. However, Planned Parenthood flies in an out-of-state doctor once a week to a Sioux Falls clinic. The state is also trying to pass a law mandating pregnant women seeking abortions to first visit CPCs, which as I’ve written about before, are nothing more than coercive anti-choice “clinics.”

As it is, providers face violence and threats on a regular basis, which has seriously impacted the number of physicians willing to perform abortions. According to NARAL Pro-Choice America,

Since 1993, eight clinic workers – including four doctors, two clinic employees, a clinic escort, and a security guard – have been murdered in the United States. Seventeen attempted murders have also occurred since 1991. In fact, opponents of choice have directed more than 6,100 reported acts of violence against abortion providers since 1977, including bombings, arsons, death threats, kidnappings, and assaults, as well as more than 156,000  reported acts of disruption, including bomb threats and harassing calls.

So, can someone please explain to me how legalizing murder of abortion providers is pro-LIFE?

Categories: Politics

Tags: Abortion, anti-choice, Mother Jones (magazine), Murder, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood, Sioux Falls South Dakota, South Dakota