Brownback Mountain

Every election year it comes back like a bad villain from a horror film. You thought it was dead, you thought it would never come back but every year another crappy sequel comes out to reap the guaranteed benefits.

This year, the abortion issue is on its 39th sequel and still going strong as a perennial talking point to rile up fights between the pro-choice and pro-life camps into getting the vote out.

As a rule, sequels are usually continually worse than their predecessors and abortion debates follow suit. Now, less than a year before the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, one of the most ugly pieces of legislation against abortion has grabbed the baton and ran.

Kansas's lawmakers introduced a bill earlier this month that promises to be the most sweeping anti-abortion legislation passed in recent history.

Among the provisions detailed in the bill is one that would make doctors exempt from malpractice suits if they withheld information from their patients that could have prevented a health problem for the mother or child.

What could possibly give doctors this power? As long as they were withholding the information to prevent the mother from getting an abortion, they are given blanket immunity except in the event that the mother dies.

Just cross your fingers, and hope you don't die.

As if to add a cherry to the top of this lunacy sundae, the bill also requires women to be told that abortions cause breast cancer. This is completely untrue and is unsupported by evidence. Leave it to conservatives to ignore science and facts.

None of that is the scariest part of the whole issue. What's most disturbing is what Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said after declaring he would sign the bill as soon as it met his desk.

Brownback made it perfectly clear that he hadn't even read the bill, and would still be willing to sign it just because it's pro-life. Since he's pro-life as well, he would just give it a rubber stamp.

No matter what side of the debate you're on, there's a big distinction between being against abortion and plainly against women's health, and this bill clearly crosses the line.

Allowing a doctor to provide you with inadequate information just to prove a political point is a disgusting measure that no sane person should support.

For a political point with their base, however, many otherwise normal people with full use of their mental faculties will publicly support this measure. It's just that thinking that's poisoning the well for serious debate.

Pro-life groups shouldn't be surprised when this kind of rhetoric turns moderates away from their ideals. Rather than actually tackling the issue at hand, it shames the people on the other side and threatens their health in the process.

Both sides of the pro-life and pro-choice argument need to remember this. While we have differences of opinions on this, we shouldn't be throwing each other under the bus just to make a political point.

Rubber-stamping a dangerous bill just because you're part of a group is a terrible way to govern, and belittling your opposition is a surefire way to lose your credibility.