Lawmakers Return to Unfinished Business of Controlling Women's Wombs

State Rep. Chris Newton says Tennessee has "the most liberal abortion laws in the United States of America."

Like he'd know.

The Republican doesn't say which tv channel he gets his facts from, but it's hard to believe that Rep.Newton is deluded enough to believe that Tennessee has the "most liberal" anything.

According to NARAL, when it comes to reproductive rights, Tennessee rates as one of the worst states in the nation. 94% of Tennessee counties have no abortion provider. Doctors have the right to refuse to provide contraceptives. The state offers no help for low-income women in need of abortions. We have no laws in Tennessee that require hospitals to offer victims of rape access to emergency contraceptives. Nor have our legislators passed laws to ensure equity in private insurance coverage for prescription contraception.

But, gee, when would our legislators have time to pass laws aimed at helping women avoid unintended pregnancies? I mean, the business of introducing and re-introducing legislation aimed at striking down women's rights is time-intensive labor. It also gets lawmakers a whole lot of attention, and that may actually be the entire point of the annual exercise.

With the current session less than a month old, Rep. Newton has already managed to introduce not one, but two proposals to strip women's right to choose from the state constitution. And, no, the Republican didn't stay up late at night working on the project. He merely copied, word for word, the anti-choice resolutions from last year. Yeah, he gets paid for this.

One of the resurrected anti-choice resolutions was passed by the ultra-conservative Senate last year, and killed by the House. Let's hope our hard-working legislators will be able to do everything all over again this year, just like they did last year. We sure wouldn't want any nasty healthcare crisis to distract them from their traditional fun and games.