Tennessee wants to require post-abortion death certificates

By Peter Teague . Posted February 15, 2007.

This is just lovely. Proposed legislation in Tennessee would require death certificates for aborted fetuses -- creating public records that identify women who have had abortions.

Rep. Stacey Campfield, a Republican, said his bill would provide a way to track how many abortions are performed. He predicted it would pass in the Republican-controlled Senate but would have a hard time making it through the Democratic House.

The thing is, the number of abortions performed is already reported to the state's Office of Vital Records. So the only purpose of this bill is to identify women having abortions -- it would even include their social security numbers!

House Judiciary Chairman Rob Briley called this "the most preposterous bill I've seen." No fucking joke.

More at Women's Health News.

              

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Jessica Valenti is founder and editor of Feministing.

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