Sebelius For Veep!
By It’s not just Al Gore; another politician who Ezra has convinced me to see the virtues of is Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius. And here’s yet another reason to get on the bandwagon:
Legislation requiring physicians to furnish the state with additional information when they perform abortions was vetoed Friday by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who said it crossed the line on privacy issues.
The bill would have required physicians to inform state health officials about each late-term abortion and whether the fetus was abnormal. It also would have expanded how much information doctors would have had to report, including how a woman would have been harmed without the procedure.
When the bill was debated by legislators, supporters said it would give Kansans better data about abortion, while opponents called it an attempt to harass doctors and clinics.
In her veto message, Sebelius said the bill did nothing to reduce the number of abortions in Kansas.“Instead, it will force women to provide intimate, sensitive health information to the government,” she wrote. “Privacy is a fundamental concern to all Kansans.”
She also noted, “As we have seen in recent months, we can never take our health privacy for granted.”
That was viewed by some as an oblique reference by the Democratic governor to Republican Attorney General Phill Kline’s ongoing dispute with two abortion clinics over access to their patients’ records.
(Via Feministing. Whose proprietor gets extra props from me for praising my uber-geeky headphones.)
I’ve never heard her speak, but a female Democrat who can not only get elected to statewide office in Kansas but is willing to stand up to this kind of bullshit regulation of reproductive freedom is certainly someone to keep a close eye on. The veto message (in addition to the swipe at Kansas’ panty-sniffer in chief) is particularly gratifying. More politicians need to explain what the purpose and effect of these kinds of regulations are rather than following the advice of the William Saletans of the world and simply rolling over and playing dead without really even considering their utter lack of merit.