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A sign at NYC's 2011 rally for women's health.
Photo Credit: Sarah Seltzer
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When statehouses across the country
started passing abortion bans at the seemingly arbitrary threshold of
20 weeks, was it a mere coincidence? When the "right to know"
bills that required mandatory ultrasounds -- sometimes transvaginal ones
-- before abortions were introduced or passed, in state after
state, from Virginia to Texas to Pennsylvania, was that a matter of
chance?
Of course not: none of
these trends were the product of diabolical mind-sync on the
part of anti-choice legislators. Instead, these bills arise from the
tradition of blueprint legislation -- the practice of borrowing bill
prototypes or model bills from a central national entity and
then adapting them for introduction in statehouses. The practice is used
on both sides of the aisle, but is particularly insidious in
the case of anti-choice bills, part of the "war on women"-- the campaign
to erode Roe until it's all but nonexistent.
Blueprint
legislation has come to light recently thanks to the spotlight
on the right-wing, corporate American Legislative Exchange Council, and
in particular ALEC's hand in the proliferation of dangerous
"stand your ground" laws, like Florida's, and discriminatory voter ID
legislation.
ALEC has taken a
hit in recent days as progressive activists, including ColorofChange and
the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, have convinced major
companies -- among them Mars, McDonald's, Wendy's, Kraft, Coca-Cola,
PepsiCo, and Intuit, plus the Gates Foundation -- to drop their
affiliations with ALEC in light of the Trayvon Martin case. READ MORE
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