My first diary ever, please be kind to me?
It's pretty rare that I read anything on HuffPo that I haven't already found several hours to a day earlier from another online source, but this morning it managed to provide me with an unpleasant surprise:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
In a vote of 73 to 29 yesterday, the Alabama house passed a bill that would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detectable. Heartbeat is usually possible to detect via ultrasound at 6-7 weeks after a woman's last period. Many women do not yet even know they are pregnant at that stage (unless they are trying to conceive, which would be inapplicable on this topic anyway) which means that Alabama just made a serious move toward making MOST abortions illegal in their oh-so-lovely state.
I grumbled my way over to Salon to see if they'd picked it up yet, and sure enough:
http://www.salon.com/...
Seems that in addition to the above, three other anti-choice bills passed yesterday-- one to increase the waiting period from 24 to 48 hours, one to usher in new limits on a minor's ability to receive an abortion without parental consent, and one total clusterf--k "to include coercive anti-choice counseling about hospice care for non-viable fetuses to women seeking to terminate doomed pregnancies" (from Salon article).
....WTF, Alabama House?!
On to the Senate it goes. Anyone want to tell me more about the typical habits of the Alabama Senate? I'm cringing already at the likely answers.