Only in America, with the world's highest incarceration rate, would a governor characterize half his state's population with criminal propensity. Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana, compared women to criminals in an ill-formed allegory.
His statement came at the signing of House Bill 636 at the First Baptist Church of West Monroe. The measure "requires women to be informed of their specific legal rights and options before they undergo an abortion procedure." Abortion clinics therefore have to inform patients that "it is illegal to coerce a woman into getting an abortion, that the child's father must provide child support, that certain agencies can assist them during and after the pregnancy and that adoptive parents can pay some of the medical costs."
Making sure women get accurate, balanced information about medical procedures sounds innocuous enough. But the way Jindal words his support for the bill will raise the hairs on the back of your neck:
"When officers arrest criminals today, they are read their rights," he said. "Now if we're giving criminals their basic rights and they have to be informed of those rights, it seems to me only common sense we would have to do the same thing for women before they make the choice about whether to get an abortion."
The implicit comparison of any woman considering an abortion to a criminal is shocking. And beyond that, the subtext behind the clause, "we would have to do the same thing for women," speaks volumes about the entire agenda of the GOP over the last three years. The Republican party has no interest in growing women's influence in politics, except for how token examples serve to grow their voter base with independent female voters.
Politicians like Jindal and Michelle Bachman, who denigrates abortion, will continue to pay lip service to ascending women in politics, but switch the bait and sap the constitutionally protected personal rights of women.
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