As Melissa Harris-Perry reported on Sunday's edition of her eponymous show, today is when Mississippi's new restrictions on abortion providers kick into effect. The law, HB1390, requires abortion providers to be licensed OB-GYNs with the authority to admit patients to Mississippi hospitals—in effect, making it impossible for Mississippi's sole remaining abortion clinic to stay open.
"The effect is to make it impossible for women in Mississippi to obtain a safe, legal medical procedure to which they have a constitutional right," said Harris-Perry.
That seems as good a reason as any to revisit what Mississippi State Representative Bubba Carpenter said about the law at a Republican Party meeting in Mid-May. Melissa Harris-Perry aired part of the video in that same episode, courtesy of MaddowBlog (the good people who originally reported on this).
Here's a remarkable quote from that video:
And of course, there you have the other side. They're like, 'Well, the poor, pitiful women that can't afford to go out of state are just going to start doing them at home with a coat hanger.' That's what we've heard over, and over, and over. But hey, you have to have moral values. You have to start somewhere, and that's what we've decided to do.
Harris-Perry's response: "So it seems that the moral values of lawmakers like State Representative Bubba Carpenter do not include a concern for women's health and safety."
That point really can't be hammered home enough. Watch the video. Listen to the implied sneer in, "poor, pitiful women." Note the dismissive hand wave when Carpenter says he's heard these concerns "over, and over, and over." It's one thing to be merely pro-life. But to Carpenter, the health of women forced to seek illegal abortions isn't even a factor.
It's hard to swallow "pro-life" as the label for guys like Carpenter who dismiss the health concerns of already-born women with a shrug; especially having seen what that worldview has wrought. As Harris-Perry noted on the show, "Mississippi has this strange reality where it has one of the lowest abortion rates, but then also one of the highest teen pregnancy rates and one of the highest—in fact, the highest—poverty rate in the country." Mississippi's new law, by making it so that only women who can afford to travel out of state have access to abortions, will only reproduce that poverty and further divide it along gender lines.
UPDATE: A federal judge has blocked the state of Mississippi from enforcing HB1390, pending further judicial review. A hearing is set for July 11.
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welcome to the 1800's mississippi, hope you all vote out all those good for nothing repukes come election day.
In a time of extreme poverty and to many people with out enough food to eat.
Why does Mississippi want more poor sick children????? For hundreds of years women gave themselves abortions by drinking turpentine and Castor oil..and many died.
Most women who get abortions have to decide whether they can feed and take care of a child..Do they give it up as a cell or do they wait and have to give it up later to DFCS.
This was the woman's mistake. Why should a child have to suffer this terrible hardship and emotional separation from its mother and other family members later.
When the medical facilities are full of people who have eaten the cheap carbohydrate foods like macaroni, noodles, rice,potatoes which is the only thing that you can afford on foodstamps. These poor people are over weight and even young adults have high blood pressure and even the children are getting type 2 diabetes.
They should cook more???? How much does it cost in electricity or gas to spend even 1= hour cooking a healthy family meal every day for a month. These people do not have money to pay utility companies. People are getting their water turned off and going to public road side rest areas to collect water.
These children will never get an education to get themselves out of this poverty.
This is the Right of Choice of the woman,,The rest is between the woman and her GOD.
Let GOD be the judge and jury . GOD has always done a fine job and doesn't need any help from the government officials in Mississippi.
Here's what they should do... Say to all the men in Mississippi "Until we get out rights back...NO MORE SEX... I bet you would see a fast change .........
What I'm really curious about is once these men have their way and every woman has that child, every child is born, every egg fertilized results in a live birth, every rape victim impregnated is forced by her state government to bear that child, WHERE is the follow up??? What is their plan going forward? Will they fund education? Will they fund head start? Will there be WIC? Will there be day care? Will there be HEALTH care? Will these impassioned people adopt the unwanted children? Will there be counseling for the mothers who are mentally distressed for being forced to give birth to the child forced upon her by a rapist, her father, her uncle?? Will the politicians step up and care for these mothers and children? Will they pay child support? Honestly, I don't think they have thought this through very well. No I don't think they have.