While most of the nation's focus is on political manueverings in DC, most of the action that really affects our lives occurs at the state level. Although the watered down filibuster reform is aggravating, and watching Republicans shoot themselves in the foot while attemping to grill SoS Hillary Clinton and future Sos John Kerry is entertaining, none of that is very germaine to our daily lives.

If you are a woman with an unwanted pregnancy, however, the laws of the state you call home are definitely affecting your life. Since Roe -vs- Wade has made abortion legal at the national level, anti-choice activists have been working hard at the state level to make abortion so difficult as to eliminate it completely. Some states have only one abortion clinic serving the entire state. One of those states is Mississippi, and it faces closure when a new law goes into effect:

That's how they do it. I'm sure there was some rational-sounding explanation for the law, along the lines of "if there are medical complications during the procedure, the doctor needs to be able to admit the patient to an ER and continue treatment". Of course - any hospital that gives the doctors that privilige gains nothing but a lot of grief from anti-choice crusaders.

Laws like these attack the doctors and the facilities. There are also the laws that create hoops that women must jump through (like waiting periods, forced ultrasounds, counseling) in an effort to discourage them. There are also attempts to protect the fetus via various means. Mississippi voters defeated a "personhood bill" meant to grant legal rights to a non-viable clump of cells. A state legislator in New Mexico is trying another tack, probably one of the most disgusting attacks on women yet: It would outlaw abortion for rape victims as "tampering with evidence":

It's likely this will get voted down in this state, but it's a model for other states with a Republican lock on the statehouse and governor. A lot of this stuff got tossed aside this past year for fear of alienating voters. Now that the election is over, watch for more of these types of bills to float to the surface like a dead bloated fish.

There is one interesting hypocritical wrinkle in all of this. Part of the big bruhaha last year was over contraception. It was posited that forcing religion-founded businesses (ie: Catholic, Methodist, and Baptist hospitals) to include contraceptive coverage in their insurance plans was unconstitutional. Part of the problem with the clinic in Mississippi is that the nearby hospitals are all religion-based and unlikely to give an abortion provider admitting privileges. The Catholic church's positions on birth control and abortion are pretty well known.

That's why it's amazing that a chain of Catholic hospitals argued in a malpractice case that fetuses aren't people:

At 7 months, the fetuses may have actually been viable outside the womb. If the Catholics are willing to argue they aren't people under the law to protect their finances, then they have no moral ground to prevent abortions for women in their first trimester. Then again - considering the long bloody history of the Christian religion, they really have no moral standing on anything.