Overbearing Paternalistic "Protection"

So let's combine the gist of the last two posts with this excellent article by Emily Bazelon in the NY Times Sunday Magazine.  Excerpts, then the full article link.  Then we finish with a brilliant John Oliver video on the topic.


Laws Designed For the "Protection" of Women?

"Having grown up in the years when women, by law or custom, were protected from a range of occupations, including lawyering, and from serving on juries, I am instinctively suspicious of women-only protective legislation." -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
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After decades of battling for the life of the "unborn," abortion opponents have started arguing that for the sake of women seeking abortions -- to protect their health and safety -- the state must impose strict new regulations on clinics.  In 2013, Texas passed a new law requiring clinics to employ doctors with admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.  Clinics must meet construction and equipment standards for an "ambulatory surgical center."  The cost of such renovations is $1.5 million to $3 million per facility.  [Ohio and 20 other states have similar new regs.]

On March 2, the Supreme Court [minus the late Scalia, now down to eight] will hear a challenge to the Texas law.  The plaintiffs operate four Texas abortion clinics and will argue that the law has no real medical purpose, and instead imposes an "undue burden" on women's rights to reproductive care.

The Texas law and its ilk play to our usual assumptions that the impulse to protect is benevolent, and to the notion that women are especially deserving of solicitude.  The image of the domestic violence victim who receives a protective order is female, though men have the same right to go to court.

There's no phrase for men equivalent to "damsel in distress."  No one suggests sending men to surgical centers for colonoscopies (which have a mortality rate 30 times as high as abortions).

The American College of OB/GYN and the AMA have been blunt in disputing the rationale for the Texas law, saying there is "no medical purpose" for requiring surgical center standards or hospital admitting privileges.

"I'm wishy-washy, and all this stuff
gives me a Supreme headache!"

The main audience in this legal challenge is the court's lone swing voter on abortion, Justice Anthony Kennedy.  He has previously upheld Roe v. Wade but in his latest opinion on abortion in 2007, he hinted at old-school paternalism.  "Some women may regret their choice," he wrote, "and some doctors may prefer not to disclose precise details."  So to spare women from hearing about a type of late-term procedure, Kennedy permitted Congress to ban it.

Last summer, for gay couples, Kennedy championed the "autonomy" to make "profound choices."  He has yet to express the same faith in women.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/magazine/do-women-need-legislative-protection.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmagazine&action=click&contentCollection=magazine&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=9&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

Now watch John Oliver as he utterly destroys all these idiotic anti-abortion laws.  You need to see it.  Click the link and watch it.  Watch it all.

https://youtu.be/DRauXXz6t0Y