Thursday, April 17, 2008

OK legislature overrides Henry's veto of 1878

The legislature has overriden Gov. Henry's veto of an anti-abortion bill. The bill forces doctors to perform ultrasounds before abortions, and "protects" health care providers who refuse to perform abortions.

That's the part that really gets me. If we're going to have laws that give doctors the right to exercise religious or other non-medical bias in deciding what procedures to perform, then we're in for a world of hurt. The decision of whether or not to perform a particular medical procedure should be based only on sound medicine and medical ethics.

For me, though, the bottom line is this: don't we have other things to worry about in this state? Aren't our roads and bridges in state of dangerous disrepair? Aren't our schools underfunded? Can't we do something about our state's shameful record when it comes to food insecurity? Is abortion really the one thing we need to pinpoint right now?

Still, kudos to Gov. Henry for having the chutzpah to veto this bill, even if it did get overridden. I've been pissed at Henry before for signing 1804 and that law that makes it easier to shoot people in public, and this doesn't make up for either of those, but still, kudos are in order here.

Oh, the above link is to an article in The Oklahoman, which is a terrible right-wing shill of a newspaper, but the article gives a pretty good description of what the bill does.