Robson's Choice: Lie and Kill 'Em

Before our own Nurse Rached, Judy Robson, was dumped by her fellow Party of Death pals, she managed to introduce (to great fanfare) a Senate bill which would mandate the death of babies--SB129 (its mate is AB377.)

In so doing, Nurse Rached demonstrated the First Art of the Lie very well. That First Art is called "Propaganda." So the bill is disguised as a humanitarian effort to help victims of rape by preventing a conception resulting from that rape. This is accomplished by requiring hospitals to administer "Plan B" to such victims.

There is a minor problem: "Plan B", in some cases, is an abortion pill. Or magic bullet, if you like. You know....deadly.

Note well, folks, that "rape victims" are the headline, and that Nurse Rached (and her pals at Planned Parenthood) never refer to "abortion" as an effect.

Sorta like using the term "Urban Renewal" to describe 'ethnic cleansing.'

Despite the ominous signs and signals, Wisconsin's Catholic Bishops sat on their hands, effectively "green-lighting" the legislation--partly due to a "conscience clause" which was inserted, allowing medical practitioners to "opt out" of administering the death-pill due to moral concerns.

But then Mark Gundrum went to Iraq and the Killer Lobby got greedy. They dropped the "conscience clause."

Two Catholic Bishops noticed that they had been double-crossed and went public.

Pat McIlheran started writing on the topic.

So it was time for the Art of the Lie's second phase to go operative: Lie by Omission. That fell to a couple of Wisconsin leggies who claimed:

"Emergency contraception is just that: contraception. It works like regular, daily birth control pills in preventing pregnancy. The vast majority of physicians, including the leading medical organizations in the country, do not believe that birth control pills cause an abortion. There is no medical evidence that emergency contraception ends a pregnancy."

Fortunately, P-Mac is pretty good with language and logic for a young whippersnapper...

This is where that line about not ending a pregnancy comes from. You hear that a lot about Plan B or other such drugs: It's usually stated as, "does not interfere with an established pregnancy."

That's what I said Plan B backers say, and it's what Musser and Wasserman are saying here.

When you keep hearing a phrase repeated, it may be a signal that words are hiding something, that someone's being a verbal weasel. Which these two lawmakers are doing in their essay. They're weaseling. They're able to say Plan B doesn't end a pregnancy since the American College of Gynecologists has maintained for years that pregnancy doesn't start when a child is conceived but rather later, when the conceived child -- by this point, no mere fertilized egg but a sphere of cells -- at last implants into the uterine wall.

Roughly akin to saying that the homeless are not people because they do not have a home.

What if you think, as do millions of people, that life begins at conception? Well, then it is an abortion, at least in the times that Plan B doesn't succeed in suppressing ovulation or impairing sperm motility. What if you're a doctor who thinks life begins at conception? Then, according to Musser and Wasserman, that's just a "religious view" that can be disregarded as the state tells you to pass out what you regard as the kill-pill.

And, of course, Musser/Wasserman are potentially afoul of the State Constitution's provision which preferences "religious views" on such things as killing people. But who cares?

P-Mac goes to the heart of it:

Musser and Wasserman are eager for the law to impose a view that life doesn't begin at conception -- and, so, Plan B can't cause an abortion -- on doctors who think otherwise.

"We shall do by our imperium that which defies common sense and the sensibility of the citizens..."

The Alternative Lie: that it is "hospitals" not "doctors" who must provide the Killer Pill.

Yup. They expect you to swallow that, too...

The mandate very much falls on individual doctors and nurses to conform their consciences to the preferences of Musser and Wasserman, even if the two can weasel out by saying the law only applies to hospitals. If they meant that, they'd include some kind of conscience clause; any such protection was stripped out of the bill.

The Lie, and The Liars.