Nebraska's new abortion law

Posted at 11:05 AM on April 13, 2010 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Health, Politics

Nebraska has became the latest battleground in the war over abortion. The Legislature this week passed a bill that requires a full physical and mental assessment of any woman seeking an abortion.

Says the Omaha World Herald:

Under the bill, women would have to be assessed for any indication they felt pressured to have an abortion, as well as for risk factors that could predispose them to mental or physical complications.

Risk factors could include any identified in any research report published a year or more before in any peer-reviewed journal indexed by one of two major scientific indexing services.

The bill may be aimed at creating more pressure for the abortion provider. In the bill (available here) the only requirement on the woman is that she undergo the assessment. However the bill, which is to be signed into law today, includes penalties for doctors who don't comply.

The burden would also rest with the doctor to prove that the reason parents weren't notified of an abortion by a minor is that the minor was fully capable of making the decision herself.

The doctor also has the burden "of proving that the pregnant woman had sufficient reflection time, given her age, maturity, emotional state, and mental capacity, to comprehend and consider such information." It's not clear how one goes about proving that.

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Comments (4)

Actually, this law assumes, a priori, that women are incapable of thinking or deciding for ourselves.

Posted by Joanna | April 13, 2010 12:32 PM

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...and that doctors are able to somehow magically know the unknowable.

Posted by Heather | April 13, 2010 1:14 PM

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Nebraska has became the latest battleground in the war over erectile dysfunction. The Legislature this week passed a bill that requires a full physical and mental assessment of any man seeking a prescription for Viagra.

Under the bill, men would have to be assessed for any indication they felt pressured to have an erection, as well as for risk factors that could predispose them to mental or physical complications.

The doctor also has the burden "of proving that the man had sufficient reflection time, given his age, maturity, emotional state, and mental capacity, to comprehend and consider such information."

Posted by TJ | April 13, 2010 1:22 PM

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@TJ:

I fully agree with your larger point, but this way of making the argument always makes me cringe a little.

Taking Viagra is not the same as having an abortion. There really is nothing a man can do equivalent to being pregnant.

Posted by John P. | April 13, 2010 3:25 PM

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