According to Jan Brewer and the deep thinkers in the Arizona legislature:
Life starts earliest in Arizona, which now defines gestational age as beginning on the first day of a woman’s last period, rather than at fertilization. In practice, that means the state has banned abortions after about 18 weeks (20 weeks from the last menstruation) except in the case of medical emergencies. While that provision has been much discussed, abortions after that point account for only about 1 percent of the procedures currently performed.
The stipulation likely to be most widely felt is what experts are calling an effective shutdown of medication abortions. These nonsurgical abortions are usually performed within the first nine weeks of pregnancy, and account for between 17 and 20 percent of all abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-rights advocacy group. While women often take the pills at clinics and in their homes, the bill now mandates that a medical provider must have hospital privileges within 30 miles of where the procedure takes place. Many times clinics or homes are not within 30 miles of hospitals, and the distance prevents providers from other cities or even states from caring for women, says Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute. Another factor that could contribute to what Nash called a “shutdown” of medication abortions is that the law requires abortion pills to be administered using outdated protocols, confusing providers and obscuring proper use of the drugs.
Now that Arizona has decided to separate being pregnant from when you actually become pregnant, every single woman is, according to the law, pregnant the moment they begin their last period, and will remain officially pregnant until the beginning of your very next period. There will apparently be a 1 day window in between these two events in which you are not officially pregnant.
Down the rabbit hole we go.
Cargo
they’re just never going to stop this, are they? never ever.
Baud
I wonder how all the post-menopausal women in Arizona will react when they discover they are all pregnant.
R Johnston
On the other hand, a young girl who has sex before her first period and conceives is not pregnant.
PhoenixRising
Hmm. Well, Bill Donahue will be delighted to learn that I’m 39 weeks away from having a child of my own. At last. So there’s that.
cathyx
Can I get child support payments?
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
this is going to crowd the shit out of the carpool lane.
General Stuck
Next will be a murder rap for jerking off. You wait, slippery slope, sticky situation, all that kind of shit.
TooManyJens
Weeks from last menstrual period (LMP) is actually how OB/GYNs express gestational age. Don’t get your information on pregnancy from anyone who thinks the AZ lege made this up.
beltane
Do I get to have a baby shower every month? In lieu of baby clothes I’d be happy to accept gift cards and cash.
tulip
All I can saw is I hope young people wake the fuck up and start voting.
DIAF is too good for these assholes. Thickened manticore venom for the lot.
jl
@General Stuck:
” Next will be a murder rap for jerking off. ”
Maybe for women.
Baud
@TooManyJens: So what difference will this law make in the real world? Is it all for show?
shortstop
@Marcellus Shale, Public Dick: Bwa ha ha ha.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Baud:
That was my thought, I am menopausal, am I to be considered 24 months pregnant right now? There are cases of menopausal women actually getting pregnant, so by the time she figures it out she could actually be way outside this window thanks to this idiotic law. There are rarely good outcomes for women having to carry a child to term after the age of 50, not only physically but mentally, and the very fact that when you hit retirement you are still going to be raising a teenager.
These fuckers are never going to stop until we are all barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.
David Koch
Phew!
Thank Gawd.
Just in the nick of time.
Now I can add another dependent on my tax returns.
TooManyJens
@Baud: I can’t get into it at the moment, but here’s a link that explains more: http://drjengunter.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/mother-jones-gets-facts-mixed-up-in-latest-abortion-article-and-why-it-matters/
Mnemosyne
Someone yesterday kept linking to a story about a woman being prosecuted in Idaho for self-aborting with RU-486 — I couldn’t find the exact version, so here’s the Jezebel version.
Clearly it’s terrific public health policy to make it so impossible for impoverished women to see a doctor or obtain a legal abortion that they buy drugs off the internet to do it themselves. I can’t possibly see how that could go wrong!
ericblair
@Cargo:
It’s sort of Name That Tune with conserva-crazy. You can’t really think of anything new to do, since actual thought is dangerously libbrul, so you can just double down on the golden oldies.
Oh yeah, and apparently there’s a monolith on Mars. I, for one, welcome our enormous space baby overlords, and hope that the sight of gigantic stellar fetuses will finally make goopers’ heads explode with delight and leave the rest of us in peace. Until Jupiter implodes, anyways.
General Stuck
@jl:
On further reflection, you are correct. All spent sperm will receive a decent burial, 21 gun salute, and a Medals of Freedom/wingnut
Just Some Fuckhead
Kudos on this Everyone’s a Milf law.
Ash Can
FEEMAYLES OF AMERRIKKA: ALL UR BODIES ARE BELONG TO US KTHXBAI.
/GOP
shortstop
@General Stuck: Beating the bishop = fine. Petting the kitty = SLUT!
Suffern ACE
@Baud: I think the impact is with the hospitalization services provision. And Im thinking that like all these laws it falls hardest on women in less populous parts of the state.
pragmatism
Every working woman in az should get FMLA benefits each month. Cool.
Sorry mrs. Romney, gotta be employed and payrolled.
shortstop
I never stop being amazed by conservatives’ inability to look six seconds down the road. Their capacity for delayed gratification and consequence-sussing is worse than a three-year-old’s.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne:
Here’s the story from Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Nellcote posted this last night. It’s heartbreaking in many ways.
http://news.opb.org/article/idaho-abortion-case-uneasy-both-sides/
shortstop
@pragmatism: Stop minimizing how hard it is to hire and keep good help.
Elizabelle
@Litlebritdifrnt:
You think they care whether you have a kitchen?
jonas
How about every woman within 1500 yards of a post-pubescent male should be considered pregnant? Also, any post-pubescent male producing viable sperm is automatically considered a father and should have to pay child-care into a state fund to care for the children any unmarried woman in his zip code is forced to carry to term. Seems like an equitable solution to me.
driftglass
@Cargo: Last time it took the Union army and four years of war to get them to stop.
slag
@TooManyJens: Good link. Good blog.
driftglass
In Arizona, sentient life begins at legislation.
It ends at the Arizona border.
The sooner we roll in the National Guard and start locking up the Phoenix Pharisees the better.
nepat
More proof the Republican war on women is a Democratic invention! Nothing to see here.
ksmiami
the GOP – literally, motherfuckers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hate them all
Hungry Joe
Add this collective descent into madness to the list of Thing I Didn’t See Coming — along with going to the moon a few times and never going back, tattoos, brutalizing air travel, and plastic packaging that you can’t open.
middlewest
Actually, the new law doesn’t change the definition of gestational age at all, and it uses the same method that every ob/gyn in the world uses, but whatever.
R Johnston
@Baud: In the real world, women in Arizona who have irregular periods that may come after three weeks or after three months are up shit’s creek with this law and won’t be able to get an abortion at 8 weeks.
R Johnston
@middlewest: It’s a flat-out lie that OBGYNs use weeks from last period as the determination of gestational age. If a woman has a regular period and there’s no need to make a more accurate estimation then weeks from last period plus half a period is used, but otherwise not so much so. Whenever an accurate estimation is needed, doctors know how to do better.
Stop being a prevaricating apologist for the state’s confiscation of women’s uteri as public property.
SiubhanDuinne
@Litlebritdifrnt:
You think that’s bad? I’ve been pregnant for the last 25 years!
Nellie in NZ
Wow! I just realized I’m going to be a grandmother. Better call the daughter in Phoenix and let her know.
Nellie in NZ
Wow! I just realized I’m going to be a grandmother. Better call the daughter in Phoenix and let her know.
Southern Beale
That War On Women is SO MUCH phony baloney
/sarcasm
Rome Again
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Well, they managed to get one down on me.
Southern Beale
Anyway, isn’t Arizona like Florida — a haven for retirees? Why would anyone of child-bearing age live in that hell-hole anyway?
pragmatism
@shortstop: She can hire someone to do those things. Plus have a subsidiary of Bain w-2 her and take the benefits.
TooManyJens
@R Johnston:
I’d enjoy it if you went to the blog of the pro-choice OB-GYN that middlewest and I both linked and told her that. In a “popping popcorn” sort of way.
debg
@TooManyJens: Thanks for the link. We do need to be careful about the facts (even if the other side isn’t) and I’ll put your link on Facebook.
Original Lee
@Baud: I was just thinking about this. And what about peri-menopausal and menopausal women?
Also, doesn’t this nicely shut down prescription of almost all drugs, especially contraceptives? There aren’t too many antibiotics, analgesics, etc., that don’t have a warning about not taking them if you might be pregnant, which legally encompasses almost every woman of childbearing age in the state.
R Johnston
@Litlebritdifrnt:
They’re never going to stop until it’s feasible to kill all women and rely on a combination of cloning technology, artificial uteri, and next generation blow-up dolls for all their reproductive and sexual needs.
dedc79
One would think that today’s edition of “War on Women” in the MSM would be the arizona bill. But no, they’re too busy talking about something some CNN employee said and trying to pin it on the President
Omnes Omnibus
@Hungry Joe: Come on, you had to see tattoos coming. It was inevitable.
SiubhanDuinne
@R Johnston:
I have a young female relative in Arizona who is afflicted with a form of hemophilia, to the extent that she is on hormone therapy to keep her from menstruating more than a couple of times a year, and when she does it’s usually in the hospital with plenty of factor and enough blood for a full transfusion available, just in case.
Date of her last period? Probably some time last fall. I guess she’s five or six months pregnant, by law.
This just makes me want to scream, and throw things at other things.
Original Lee
@TooManyJens: And now I read your link and understand. Thank goodness. I was seriously weirded out from the OP.
R Johnston
@TooManyJens: I doubt I could write something that would get through moderation. I’m just not that nice. But I’ll give it a shot.
El Cid
Could they maybe redefine rainy days as sunny days? Or that happiness begins from the last moment of sadness?
calliope jane
Damn. Damn, damn, damn. I cannot wait to get out of here.
This though:
Not that AZ has a lot of rural areas or anything. And nothing like requiring that doctors use outdated procedures in administering medication. Fantastic.
I’m feeling just awash in pro-women sentiment.
(there was an article the other day that legislators got a bunch of knitted uterati, though, so I can only hope this translates to votes).
Calming Influence
Not really a rhetorical question: at what point can the federal government step in and say to a state: “Fix that fucked up law or we’re done with ya”? I mean Florida and other states pass laws that make it legal to shoot kids in hoodies if they make you nervous; Arizona passes a law that makes the gleam in daddy’s eye a U.S. citizen; what if New Mexico passes a law that allows you to kill one illegal immigrant a year, as long as you have a hunting permit?
This shit is disturbing.
jwb
All this crazy makes me wonder if the Arizona GOP is going to get clobbered in the fall.
Mr Stagger Lee
Mexican-Americans and other Central Americans save Arizona, you are now our only hope.
Omnes Omnibus
@calliope jane:
I saw a post on that project here and sent a link to it to an aunt who knits and crochets and then she forwarded it on to all her yarn oriented friends. According to my aunt, it took very little time to make a uterus.
Ken
the law requires abortion pills to be administered using outdated protocols
What is the legal and ethical position of a doctor who is told by the state to do something that is medically wrong? Note there are two situations: when the doctor refuses to follow the state law by following medical guidelines; and when the doctor deviates from medical guidelines to follow the law.
I think this came up with one of the ultrasound bills, too.
Related question: Take the second doctor above, who knows that the state has prescribed an ineffective and possibly dangerous procedure but does it anyway. If the patient dies, is the doctor liable? Is the state, or any individual legislator who passed the bill, liable?
hells littlest angel
Women’s lives are going to be nothing but one damned baby shower after another.
Omnes Omnibus
@hells littlest angel: There had better be a wedding shower in there too or else they are all just a bunch of hussies.
scav
Wonder what these brilliant and deep legislative thinkers will accept as official long-form documentation of of a woman’s last period and specifies where such documentation should be mailed for bookkeeping purposes?
And does that whole “medical provider must have hospital privileges within 30 miles of where the procedure takes place” apply to all drugs (blue pills anyone?) or possibly to all medical interventions because the creation of a whole no-medical-attention zone might be a bit of a downer. Because it has been clearly stated there is no war on the wimminz so it simply can’t only apply specifically to a medical procedure only they undergo.
John O
Personally I’m looking forward to the first SCOTUS zygote case, hoping it involves a miscarriage, God’s abortion, and women’s reaction after our 5-4 Catholic SCOTUS rules for the zygote.
Omnes Omnibus
@John O: How can a zygote have standing when it has no legs?
ETA: And don’t try to claim the ADA comes into play because you know they don’t like that.
Rome Again
@jwb:
I’ll be staying in Arizona at least long enough to help them in that effort. If we don’t win, Thymezone’s going to have to come find me cuz I’m outta here!
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: Zygotes can apparently scream without having lungs according to some, including that nutjob in WI last week was it? Clever clever snowflakes, they’re an especially tricky species.
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: I would also have concerns that their counsel would accidentally set a file on them. Pretty much the end of the case.
RedKitten
Yes, in a lot of cases, doctors will use LNP as a way to ballpark the gestational age. However, it is most certainly not the be-all and end-all, particularly if the woman has been tracking her cycle and has a good idea as to when she conceived. And for Brewer to base abortion legislation upon this is just so intellectually dishonest and opportunistic that it takes my breath away.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: Ooohhh, tricky, we’ll have to establish some file-free buffer zones around them as well. Luckily, the lawyers representing them won’t actually need supporting documentation in court in AZ: Show up as zygote, you win at everything is basically the law of the land.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I don’t care, you know, that’s just a funny damn sentence.
ETA: In fact, I think it should be a rotating tag.
jl
@RedKitten: I think you are more right than the apparently well meaning doctor TooManyJens linked to. There is a difference in defining gestational age using the last menstrual period (which is what I understand the AZ legislator does) and using last menstrual period as a way of measuring gestational age.
IANAD (I am not a doctor) but docs have told me that there are other methods that can be used in early pregnancy, such as looking at development of fetus using ultrasound.
So, seems to me that by turning a measurement method into a definition of gestational age, the AZ legislature is trying to practice medicine. And, it is an important substantive issue, not a red herring.
I think the doc in the link misses implications of turning a measurement method into a definition.
Edit: IAAS (I am a statistician), and will assert that confusing a definition with measurement method is a problem the comes up from time to time in data analysis.
Burnspbesq
What’s the over/under on the number of days before a U.S. district judge enters a TRO blocking enforcement of this bullshit? Five? OK, I’ll put $20 on under.
Can you recall an entire legislature?
calliope jane
@Omnes Omnibus: Really? I have to see if there’s a crochet version because I cannot knit.
I was just excited that we actually had people in AZ willing to do that. And to lambast legislators’ Facebook pages. I heard what people were doing in VA and didn’t think we’d even get close to that here. AZ wasn’t a Confederate Territory for nothing.
I know, in the scheme of things, that posting on Facebook or mailing in uteri isn’t that big of a deal. But considering how awful this state can be (SB 1070 is awesome and it’s totally not affecting our economy! Brewer makes a brilliant governor! Arpaio is a fantastic sheriff even though crime is going up in his county! keep government out of my Medicare! etc., etc.), I just want this to be remembered in the fall.
Cacti
In Braveheart, Edward Longshanks mused, “The trouble with Scotland is that it’s full of Scots.”
The trouble with Arizona is, it is full of Zonies.
Jesus, Allah, Buddha, one of you get me out of here!
Omnes Omnibus
@calliope jane:
I have no idea. No one in his or her right mind would let me near knitting needles or those hook things. This is why I outsourced.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Today I’ve been pregnant for 21 years, 3 months, and 3 weeks. 21 years and one day of that without an actual uterus. Quite an accomplishment, isn’t it?
RedKitten
@jl:
Basically.
And I know several women whose due dates were adjusted, because as the fetus grew, and was easier to measure, they then realized that their initial assessment of gestational age was off by a week or even sometimes more.
To use myself as an example, my cycles are extremely long (often approaching 40 days). If we had gone by LMP when determining SamKitten’s gestational age, then he would have been almost 4 weeks old…before he was ever even conceived. And obviously, once they did the 20-week ultrasound, they would have realized that the age was off, and would have adjusted it accordingly.
So again, for Brewer to use this as a legal definition, only shows how opportunistic and dishonest she is.
Gex
@Omnes Omnibus: They’ve defined corporations as people. I do not doubt they will find that zygotes are people and also find that women aren’t. Too many Catholics on the USSC for women to really think we’d count as people.
scav
Well, if they go whole-farm-animal on us and it is possible given already existing comments (in GA & IL, no?) about cows providing adequate examples for wimminz, then maybe they could use horses and give all babies, potential or otherwise the same birthdate or gestationdate of Jan 1. Would certainly streamline things and they’re all about shrinking govt. Flat-Birthdate!
scav
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Does that mean you’ve got two votes? It’s certainly old enough to drink on its own in there too. Congrats! (I guess)
Gex
@scav: No wonder why they can’t figure out how SSM won’t lead to beastiality and man-dog weddings. They can’t tell the difference between human beings and animals. And these are the Intelligent Design, we didn’t evolve from other primates, humans are super special folks. I can’t keep up.
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: Too many Capricorns. Think these things through.
PurpleGirl
@calliope jane: Yes, there is a crochet version. You can find it at
http://www.governmentfreevjj.com/
http://www.governmentfreevjj.com/the-patterns/
becca
@Litlebritdifrnt: These fuckers will be made to stop. Period.*
*not a menstrual reference.
noodles
I am embarrassed to have stupid bible-hugging bastards making laws for any of us advanced human beings who live in the year 2012. SEPARATE THE F__KING CHURCH AND STATE OR YOU G__DAMN REPUBLICAN BASTARDS CAN ROT IN YOUR EVER LOVING HELL!!!
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: but da Baby Jesus wuz a Capricorn.
jon
How much spotting equals a “period”? I know for a fact that irregular periods were part of my ex’s routine, plus she was spotting a lot during her pregnancy, so how much does it take to make a period? How will menstruation events be rated? Does it take heavy flow to make it official? At least two of my children may or may not have been aborted in the third trimester depending on the interpretations of what exactly counts as a period.
I’m sure this was all figured out, but I’d really like to see them deets.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: One tries.
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: Did you ever read some of the shit that dude said? No way the fundies want more people like that.
Burnspbesq
@Gex:
“They’ve defined corporations as people”
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch18.asp
Page 463.
Burnspbesq
@Gex:
“Too many Catholics on the USSC for women to really think we’d count as people.”
Catholicism is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for misogyny. You know this, yet for some unfathomable reason you choose to pretend otherwise. What’s your agenda?
calliope jane
@Cacti: Me, too! Me, too! >>waves wildly<<
@Omnes Omnibus: Ah, wise move.
joes527
Does this mean that Bristol Palin is pregnant again?
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
@hells littlest angel:
fuck the mayans, we are all motherfuckers now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Burnspbesq: How about this: they have mistakenly equated the legal fiction of corporate personhood, which is nothing more than a convenience for business people, with the actual personhood of living, breathing human beings. and they have done this, I might add, at great cost to our polity.
liberal
I don’t know how gestational age is defined, but I thought pregnancy didn’t begin until implantation (as a medical definition).
liberal
@R Johnston:
LOL!
calliope jane
@PurpleGirl: That’s amazing, thank you so much!
jl
@Burnspbesq:
Are you faying that Mr. Backftone afferts that corporations are exactly the fame, legally, as individual perfons, and this ye olde doctrine has been part of Englifh law fince the Romans?
Where is my limited liability?
suzanne
So can I use all my periods of tax deductions?
I hate these people. Canvassing for the side of light this weekend.
Every day when I pull into my garage, I stare at my Goddard for Governor sign and get a bit upset.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
hey, today on my XM radio I heard a cover by The Clash of “I Fought the Law.” Wuz totally awesome. I’ve always loved that song, which kind of sums up my entire existence.
ABL 2.0
@TooManyJens: this. i was just popping over to point this out using the same link. people are outraged about the wrong thing. ob/gyns always use the date of the last period. the bill still sucks, obviously.
eta: just read redkitten’s comment. i agree that arizona is trying to legally define something that should be left for doctors to define, and that is absolutely problematic.
suzanne
@Southern Beale:
‘Cause of the big cities in the country (Phoenix is #6 by population), it’s got a great cost of living, lots of crazy people like the weather, and there’s lots to do.
Suffern ACE
@scav: If they’re gonna do that could they at least choose a date that isn’t so close to another holiday that we didn’t already have off? How about March 8?
jl
@Burnspbesq:
To be fair to gex, I think this excerpt from your link shows that in over the last century in the US have more rights than they had previously.
” But no trading company is, with us, allowed to make by-laws, which may affect the king’s prerogative, or the common profit of the people, unlefs they be approved by the chancellor, treafurer, and chief juftices, or the judges of affife in their circuits ”
But IANAL, so work your wiles explaining this passage, please.
Cacti
@suzanne:
Cost of living, I agree.
For a city it’s size though, I’ve always thought Phoenix had meager cultural offerings, and the dining scene is the pits.
Arizona as a whole is terrific for outdoor recreation though, and Sedona is one of my favorite places on earth.
Cacti
@Burnspbesq:
Notwithstanding a penis being a prerequisite for ordination to the priesthood.
scav
@Suffern ACE: You think they’re going to let the workers get a day off to celebrate the communal birthday? Never! Corporate Owners won’t stand for that. Besides, the post-delivery former zygotes need to be at work too. The Deep Thinkers ™ might be open to changing the Flat Birthdate to Dec 31 in an attempt to spiff it up as a tax reduction though.
suzanne
@Cacti: I’ve lived in Phoenix for a long time, and I’ve found the kind of stuff that interests me. True, not in the same quantity as in New York or San Francisco, but it’s SOOOOO much better than it was. I try to stay living near Tempe now, because it’s way better than downtown. Changing Hands Bookstore is about my favorite place on earth.
There’s some good restaurants. Again, not as many as in more cosmopolitan places, but they’re there. Pizzeria Bianco is my favorite. freelancer recently recommended Cafe Monarch, which I must check out.
But ultimately it comes down to cost. I can afford a decent lifestyle here. Each kid can have their own room. I get a yard, and therefore, a dog. We own a house near good public schools. I couldn’t have this in San Francisco or New York or Chicago or Boston.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@suzanne: Shouldn’t you be watching the Coyotes right now?
Bill D.
@jon
“How much spotting equals a “period”?”
That’s another item that needs to be written into law, or better yet, the Constitution.
///
Debbie(Aussie)
Been wanting to say this for ages ‘you Americans are f*cking crazy’. Which of corse, applies almost solely to th 27%ers, but Jesus wept!
Irony Abounds
Aside from an abominable legislature (and at present, a Governor who is utterly unqualified), and oppressively hot weather through much of May through October, Arizona isn’t such a bad place to live. Unfortunately, the Arizona Taliban living in the East Valley, together with the rural rednecks control the state and are doing their friggin best to turn the state into a desert version of Alabama and Mississippi.
What is really depressing is that the legislators and Governor are truly stupid. I mean they are gobsmackingly lacking in any degree of intelligence. They don’t realize they are destroying the state. Intel’s former CEO told the Governor and legislators that the state is ruining its educational system and that if Intel had not located in Arizona many years ago Arizona wouldn’t even make the top 10 of places to move into. But, the yahoos simply blame it on the Spanish speaking folks and continue their destructive ways.
Kristin
@calliope jane: Good thing we don’t have government bureaucrats deciding our health care, though!
Anya
Someone remind me again how the Republicans are the party of small government and individual liberty.
Assholes, all of them.
dr. luba
Oh, for dogs sake people, you are concentrating on the wrong part of the bill. The definition of gestational age used in the bill is the standard way of stating gestational age in the medical literature and in current medical practice. Before the development of beta-HCG testing and ultrasound (back when I was a medical student), the only parameter we had in 99% of cases was the last period. So that was what was used.
It is silly, yes, and a woman is not actually pregnant until the third week, but that’s how it (gestational age) is defined. It’s gestational age, not fetal age. Changing it would be scientifically correct, but would require retrofitting a hundred year’s worth of medical literature, and that’s not going to happen any time soon.
Please concentrate on the really objectionable parts of the law–the stupid restrictions done for no reason but to deny women the right to an abortion. Pay attention to what Guttmacher says. That’s the evil.
Rogers
This is all kinds of awesome. The Goobers have plainly decided that mere garden-variety lunacy is no longer cutting it. Ever increasing velocity of Nutso, surely there’s a Surreality barrier similar to lightspeed they’ll bump into,amirite? Or maybe this is the long hoped for Wormhole of Stoopid- go as far as you like, instantaneously!
The Other Chuck
@ericblair:
A Prothean beacon, obviously.
Darkrose
@dr. luba: The point is that there are only three people who should be concerned about the date of my last period. None of them are members of the AZ legislature.
Constance Reader
@R Johnston: Also, serum blood tests can determine true gestational age based levels of hGC in the blood, and true gestational age can also be determined via (consented, voluntary!) sonogram. Using the first day of the last period was a method employed before science discovered that pregnancy, if it occurs, does so 4-5 days after fertilization. Therefore “first day of last period” is inaccurate.
dr. luba
@Darkrose:
And none of them really care when your last period was. That is the point. Our side is stupidly trumpeting this non-issue (pregnancy dating), thinking we are being so clever. But we’re not. We look no better than the crazy right wingers making fun of science.
There are several serious problems with this bill, and pregnancy dating ain’t one of them. The point of the bill is to put onerous restrictions on abortion so as to make it de facto outlawed. Not this dating bullshit, which is the medical standard and doesn’t change anything. The important points are that viability is being defined downwards (to 20 weeks GA from the more generally accepted 24) and that providers will have to have hospital privileges within 30 miles of where a woman takes abortifacient pills. This is what you should be outraged about.
As a commenter at the original article wrote:
lou
Then there’s the women who continue to have periods even when they’re pregnant. So is such a woman able to get an abortion after 20 weeks by their definition?
RedKitten
@Darkrose:
Hear, hear!
dr. luba
@RedKitten: No one cares when any of your periods are, regular or irregular, heavy or light. Really. Arizona is not Ceaucescue’s Romania, where the “menstrual police” checked women monthly to see if they were pregnant (and reported those who were). Nor does this law lead to that.
We are talking about a simple matter of a standard for dating pregnancies, one that is more than a century old and is that used in everyday medical practice and in the medical literature. And it is the very SAME sandard that was used in deciding Roe v. Wade. This is not something new or outrageous.
The actual gestational age is usually determined nowadays by ultrasound dating, the earlier the more accurate. The dates of the last menses don’t play much of a role anymore.
dr. luba
@lou:
No.
Mike in Denmark
How can so many people not know about LMP? It was kind of funny with my first kid reading the ‘what to expect’ kind of books when we realized that the wife was ‘pregnant’ for two weeks before the actual fucking but that was that. It’s completely standard and that people don’t know that and are mocking it is really embarrassing – it’s like watching wingnuts making fun of science.
The real, and only, issue here is that republicans are stealing 4 weeks from the roe v. wade – concentrate on that ffs.
Cathy W
@Mike in Denmark: Maybe because a lot of them have never been pregnant, or not for quite some time? But yes, I remember going to the doctor (in Michigan, in 1997, so I probably wasn’t a victim of abortion politics!) and being told I was two weeks more pregnant than I thought I was… the implication that for medical purposes I had been pregnant for two weeks before the sex act that resulted in conception didn’t sink until people started talking about this bill, though. :)
PaulW
So if I go to Arizona, and I still have sex with no one, women will STILL get pregnant around me?
I am NOT paying for any child support. I’m still a virgin dammit.
I don’t think this is what God intended with the whole “Immaculate Conception” idea…
brantl
@Burnspbesq: It’s sufficient for Scalia’s misogyny.
brantl
At the absolutely-least-ridiculous-that-could-still-be-defended concept, wouldn’t that at least have to be the day after the last day of a woman’s last period?
TK-421
I’m too lazy to read through the comments, so this might have already been pointed out: these new restrictive laws apply to miscarriages as well.
I have personal experience supporting my wife who’s had to get a D&C. It is not fun. These are women who actually do want to get pregnant, succeed for a short time, then have their hearts broken when the fetus fails to develop.
A D&C is a safe procedure to protect the woman’s health after this heartbreak. But in Arizona, they will ban this medically recommended and often necessary procedure and shame women who generally ARE trying to carry their pregnancies to birth.
This is surreal. We are trying to get pregnant, but if we lived in Arizona this law would be affecting us and risking my wife’s health. I hate these people.
gbear
You know, by this AZ bill, Mary would have been considered preggers before god did his thang, so Jesus is actually just some dude in the desert.
Brachiator
If the people of Arizona want this law, especially the women of Arizona, then they can have it. If the women of Arizona want to put each other in burkhas, and agree to reproductive slavery, then they can have it.
If doctors in the state are willing to have ignorant legislators define the boundaries of medicine and science, then Arizona becomes an iffy place to visit, and nowhere where I would want to live.
jgaugust
@Marcellus Shale, Public Dick: Honest to god, I hope some woman in Arizona goes into the carpool lane alone and then if the cops pull her over, use this against them and if they continue to press the issue, she should sue.
Seriously. Arizona, you suck.
Pococurante
If Arizona women do not care…
Why should anyone else?
Rinse repeat for any other state.
We in Texas welcome your families. Come here.