NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Louisiana Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed into law a ban on most abortions, which would be triggered if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its 1973 ruling legalizing the procedure, a spokesman said on Saturday.
The ban would apply to all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest, except when the mother’s life is threatened…
The Louisiana ban would take effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned…. Seven states have such abortion trigger laws, and Louisiana already had a trigger law, although abortion legislation has been blocked by courts. The new law would mean the ban would happen quicker in the case of a new Supreme Court decision.
It’s amazing! And it’s consequence-free! Just pass a law that isn’t actually a law unless it becomes legal for that law to exist. You get all of the political coinage for Standing By Your Principles and none of the responsibility for the consequences of the law (if it’s not actually a law yet, it doesn’t DO anything!). What could possibly go wrong?
If you’re a state politician reading this right now, listen up: Pass a trigger law today. It doesn’t have to be about abortion. Be creative! Here are some examples of possible trigger laws that will make the voters sit up and take notice:
The Cell Phone Smash Law - This is a great one for winning those elusive crank, coot, and curmudgeon votes. It simply says that once federal law is changed to criminalize yelling into your cell phone in a public place, the Smash Law kicks in, giving every citizen the right to grab and crush any offender’s phones. Don’t sweat the details of the legislation too much or listen to the whiners (”personal property,” “assault,” blahblahblah…) - people hate loud cell-phoners!
The Completely Cool Regulations - Trigger laws don’t have to be only for conservatives! Why not pass a regulation that says that once the US makes marijuana legal, your state will be doing some very cool things? Like state subsidized pizza delivery and legally mandated murals on all bedroom walls and a rule requiring the Cartoon Network to extend Adult Swim by at least three hours. The best thing about this trigger law? You’re not actually advocating marijuana; you’re letting the feds do that (which they won’t), so your law just rocks!
The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Initiative - Everybody loves Reese’s! And when you pass this trigger law, they’ll love you. All it says that at such time that the Supreme Court decides that “chocolatey goodness” is an inalienable right, everyone in the state gets a free Reese’s every day.
Sure, the abortion trigger laws are a lot more likely to be actually triggered than some of those examples, but who cares? It’s automatic, so you never have to touch the real world directly. Just ask Governor Blanco! By the time the people of Louisiana are confronted with the reality of some 15 year old girl being forced to carry to term the malformed and tragically impaired product of being raped by her daddy… well, Governor Blanco will have been re-elected long before then. So everybody wins!
That’s the great thing about this special kind of “trigger.” Nobody actually has to pull it.
Fanny Roborat
44 comments
Larry
June 19, 2006 at 3:27 am
1I have to “laugh” at those who are appalled at the fact that babies are being aborted because they are not perfect or illegitimate…those same people think nothing of a baby being aborted because of inconvenience. It is the “late” abortion that is getting to them…and I hope it hits hard and long - I would love to see this culture of death turn around.
A baby is a baby is a baby.
dee
June 19, 2006 at 6:07 am
2Larry, if someone wants to turn around a “culture of death”, or give themselves a pay hike, or continue a “temporary” tax, then they ought to have the cojones to debate the issue and be forced to take a public stand. With a trigger law, legislators can simply shrug their shoulders and whine “Our hands are tied by a previous administration.”
(Notice how I’m avoiding the whole question of the availability of a safe and necessary medical procedure, kinda like the Louisiana legislature did)
cooper
June 19, 2006 at 8:07 am
3Oh, I don’t know… personally, I really like your Cell Phone Smash Law and we wouldn’t have to back door this puppy as a trigger law. It would pass resoundingly on its own merits, especially if it were a “Stuff” instead of “Smash” law.
Today’s horoscope for dee - “You will recover highly priced possessions that were lost and meet a number of people who will greatly impact your future. Honesty is still the best policy.”
Sharon
June 19, 2006 at 9:10 am
4Any law that further restricts abortion without simultaneously expanding access to contraception, is a lie on its face.
siobhan
June 19, 2006 at 9:53 am
5Making my usual morning circuit, the next stop after here is Crooks and Liars, which spotlights… this post. (There’s also a video of Jeff Beck doing “Blue Wind”, which I haven’t heard in years.)
Dale
June 19, 2006 at 11:24 am
6Gee, Louisiana, aren’t you a wee bit late to the whole “planning ahead with strong measures that will kick in in the case of hypothetical yet very possible situations” idea?
Mary
June 19, 2006 at 11:49 am
7Just a comment here on a simple observation - of those who have posted in support of legalized abortion/contraception, all are female. Those against have been male.
I have always found it ironic that males - who will never have to carry a fetus to term; are less likely to be the victims of rape or incest; are less likely to be the primary/sole caretaker of a child; and seem to be the most likely to condemn a woman for having a child out of wedlock - are so often the most vocally and violently opposed to abortion.
Just an observation. That’s all.
Matt
June 19, 2006 at 1:37 pm
8Uh…maybe people don’t realize this is satire? What do people think debating abortion on Adam Felbers’ website will accomplish? (no offense, Adam. Love you on “Wait Wait”)
David
June 19, 2006 at 1:47 pm
9Triggers, children, loaded guns - sounds like a normal day in Tallahassee, contemporary Republican Florida’s answer to Red Stick (the idea that Louisiana would go retarded Republican even as it still elects some Democrats - who are scared to death to be Democrats - makes my Southern heart very, very heavy).
Murray
June 19, 2006 at 2:42 pm
10Larry, a quick question. Who is more moral? A legislator who every two years talks about banning abortions, but votes against the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) Program which provides for pre-natal care, and helps with young children and also votes against providing education and easy access to birth control. Or one who wants to keep abortions safe and legal but votes for funding WIC and birth control?
The first one TALKS about preventing abortions but his votes ENCOURAGE abortions. The second votes to DISCOURAGE abortions.
Larry, this may surprise you, but the RATE of abortions went UP under the hard talking Bush Administration as compared to that godless Clinton. They made getting pregnant more likely and keeping the child less favorable an option. Seems that one of the major factors in the decision to abort or keep the child has to do with the ability to pay for the kid, and the outlook on the future.
A prohibition on abortions won’t work any better than the prohibition on drinking. The decision to have an abortion will always be a private one and all you would do is send the woman to an unsafe back alley.
So you just go back to you soap box and don’t worry about the extra children who are being aborted because of dogmatic and stingy policies of the Bush administration.
Ann
June 19, 2006 at 3:12 pm
11Oh, good, Monday is FUN again!
Mojo
June 19, 2006 at 5:52 pm
12Dale beat me to it.
Maximum Bob
June 19, 2006 at 6:16 pm
13Remember this, Larry–laugh and the world laughs with you; “laugh” and you “laugh” alone.
madbard
June 19, 2006 at 7:02 pm
14It is the opposite of sunsets! Sunrise laws!
I was just rewatching The West Wing S4 DVD and someone said in passing (I think it was Will Bailey) that the only way to get current legislators to pass campaign finance reform would be to make it trigger 30 years in the future.
beefpaty
June 19, 2006 at 7:51 pm
15Some of us in the nerd community are seeing the same thing with regards to videogame laws. A few months ago, a judge ruled that a law in Michigan that tried to penalize people for selling violent video games to minors was unconstitutional (link), but in the past few months, a number of states have continued to pass their own laws restricting videogame sales in an effort to look pro-family and tough on those nasty people that are trying to turn our kids into violent criminals, and each one says that they think their bill is different enough that it will pass judicial scrutiny. Louisiana just passed a similar bill authored by lawyer Jack Thompson, and many people have openly wondered why a state so fraught with problems right now even bothered spending time debating a bill on whether videogames are killing our kids.
Linkmeister
June 19, 2006 at 8:04 pm
16NPR tells me on this hour’s newscast that South Dakota abortion rights advocates have now gathered enough signatures to force a referendum on that state’s ban.
Sharon
June 19, 2006 at 8:28 pm
17More Trigger Laws:
(1) Separate But Equal Law–in case Brown v. Board of Ed. is ever overturned.
(2) Don’t Knock Law–evidence obtained in violation of Constitutional protections can be admitted anyway. (Oh, wait, that’s already been done.)
(3) Taxidermists Relief Law–Horses belonging to teevee cowboys may not be stuffed after death.
SeattleDan
June 19, 2006 at 8:38 pm
18I’m getting dyslexic in my dotage. I first saw this thread and thought it was about cute Winnie-the-Pooh characters,until I started reading.There’s nothing in here about Tigger.
Linkmeister
June 19, 2006 at 8:53 pm
19Dan, this is the kind of Tigger you were thinking of, yes?
(It really is her name; we called her that because she bounces.)
SeattleDan
June 19, 2006 at 9:16 pm
20And what did tigger get for Christmas last year? She looks like she’s trying to find her present!
Doug
June 19, 2006 at 11:18 pm
21Like the South Dakota law, the Louisiana law specifies imprisonment and fines for the doctor, but no penalty for the woman undergoing the procedure.
What kind of strange anti-abortion logic is this? If “abortion is murder,” then the woman is clearly an accessory to murder — no, wait, it’s murder-for-hire.
So why no penalty? Could it be that anti-abortion supporters are really just a bit conflicted about that whole “abortion is murder” idea?
Linkmeister
June 20, 2006 at 2:07 am
22“And what did tigger get for Christmas last year?”
OMG, I knew we forgot something!
Actually, she quit eating rawhide bones a while back (still eats ice cubes, though, so it’s not her teeth that bother her), so I think I got her some sort of soft chewy something.
Doc Nagel
June 20, 2006 at 4:31 pm
23If we’re gonna have an abortion rights debate, we should get into the real issue, the issue nobody in the liberal media is willing to discuss: equal rights. The so-called right to reproductive freedom is obviously a form of reverse discrimination! As a man, how can I exercise this so-called right? I can’t! Now, why should women have special rights?
(BTW, my HMO repeatedly denies my request for tubal ligation as well - another clear-cut case!)
siobhan
June 20, 2006 at 5:38 pm
24Doc, if it make you feel any better, they won’t pay for my prostate exams either.
cooper
June 20, 2006 at 6:48 pm
25Nope, my mammograms aren’t covered either. Damned insurance companies.
tess
June 20, 2006 at 7:01 pm
26I’m just waiting for the day when we start seeing graphic photos of women who’ve died getting back-alley abortions and knocked-up teens with dozens of children forced to stay in abusive relationships to support said unwanted children. In the meantime, I’m just glad that my university health center gave me some morning-after pills before shoving me out the door.
Ann
June 20, 2006 at 7:15 pm
27Cooper, if you can get ‘em into that vise, I’ll bet your insurance company would cover the procedure. I just don’t wanna know about it.
David
June 20, 2006 at 9:14 pm
28Ann,
There are guys who need mammograms, as I suspect you already know. Cooper just needs to argue that diminutive hooters do not him a less worthy male-wanting-a-mammogram make.
cooper
June 20, 2006 at 9:46 pm
29Fair enough, Ann.
North Carolina has a rather atypical law. It’s a tax on illegal substances (marijuana, moonshine, mescaline, psilocybin, etc.). One could, in theory, go to the tax office, pay a tax for a given quantity of contraband, receive your tax stamps and apply them to your baggies. The tax office may not, by law, narc you out, as it were, but if caught with the goods after purchasing the stamps, you are still in violation of all federal and state laws governing the illegal substance, but you don’t have to worry about being prosecuted for breaking any tax laws. Neat, huh, and anyone who actually pays this tax, has got to be a complete moron (some have), which brings me to my point. Why hasn’t President Bush stumped the country for a similar federal law? I mean aside from the fact that, if he were ever to say the word “tax” without the word “cut” coming right behind it, he would piss his pants. At least that’s how it is now. Bush could conceivably practice saying “tax” in the bathtub over and over again, using Cognitive Behavior Theory techniques until he no longer reflexively voided himself, or he overflowed the top of the tub, whichever came first. Look, all I’m saying is that it’s his kind of law. He ought to at least be giving it a try.
dee, I hope everyone got their luggage back from the airline. Really. I was just pumping the irony of that situation, where I had offered to carry your luggage and then it wound up getting lost. You’ve got to know I’d never do anything like that to you. Well…probably not.
dee
June 20, 2006 at 10:00 pm
30All luggage present and accounted for,and all bottles of joyously consumable liquids are intact.
Good thing, too, cuz it would have been hell wringing the Chateauneuf de Pape out of my jammies.
another Matt
June 20, 2006 at 10:51 pm
31If you pumped a man full of enough hormones, could a fertilized egg implant and develop on his peritoneum as it may do in ectopic pregnancies in women? Someone in this learned readership must know the answer better than this humble bone doctor.
If so, then Doc Nagel can exercise his right to an abortion.
By the way, how come the right-to-lifers don’t campaign for the right of “children” in ectopic pregnancies to live. It’s not their fault that they are located outside a uterus. Clearly discrimination based solely on location.
Dale
June 20, 2006 at 11:43 pm
32When the Homeland Security Office divvied up this year’s terrorism protection $, they pretty much gave up all pretense of any equal right-to-life regardless of location. (If they could show that ectoplasmic babies were more likely to vote Republican, it would be a different story).
Ann
June 21, 2006 at 4:20 pm
33Oh Great Lobster—ectoplasmic babies! I’m thinking “Ghostbusters” now.
David
June 21, 2006 at 5:48 pm
34Ectoplasma works in the Alleluja (or whichever spelling was used) Chorus, a thought which I find goes nowhere, but what the hell?
SmokinJ
June 21, 2006 at 10:19 pm
35Cooper…
Those tax laws are a subversive attempt by politicians to be able to charge back taxes to convicted drug dealers. I found an article that may be of interest to you. It describes a similar law in Arizona. I am sure the lawmakers in NC have figured a way around double-jepoardy, but I don’t know.
http://www.cannabisculture.com/backissues/mayjune96/phoenix.html
SmokinJ
SmokinJ
June 21, 2006 at 10:22 pm
36Doing more research, I find this later article. Apparently, Arizona repealed their tax stamp law a year later. “That oughta show them hippies!”
SmokinJ
June 21, 2006 at 10:22 pm
37Oops forgot the link…
http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3722
siobhan
June 22, 2006 at 12:00 am
38I know there’s a joke in there somewhere about forgetting to post the link to NORML.
However, I don’t know whether to blame the fact that I can’t quite come up with it on my 20s or on my current (dot)age.
Jane
June 22, 2006 at 2:39 am
39If they wanna ban the abortion even in the case of rape can somebody please tell me onething that where the hell those mothers will go!
After this law they have to bear an unanted child, which I think that no mother would like to do that. What about the disable childs who will bear the burden if parents are unable to bear that!!!
David
June 22, 2006 at 2:23 pm
40Just remember the difference between genius and ideological stupidity, Jane. Genius has its limits.
another Matt
June 22, 2006 at 4:17 pm
41David,
Just about everything can work in the meter of the Halleluia chorus, e.g. “A-dam Felber! A-dam Felber! etc. Over Fan Apathy he reigneth. Adam Felber! Adam Felber! Adam Felber . . .”
Now just the altos . . .
Ann
June 22, 2006 at 9:07 pm
42A.M., get working on those lyrics and we’ll have an anthem for Felberpalooza!
David
June 23, 2006 at 12:56 am
43Ooh, an anthem for Felberpalooza. hedera, you’ve got to be there for the A-dam Fel-ber Chorus.
another Matt
June 23, 2006 at 11:34 pm
44. . .and he shall blog for ever and ever . . .