As Dorothy Parker would say, “Trapped like a trap in a trap.”

It’s so-and-so from the office’s birthday and here comes the card. Everybody is signing it. There are loopy scrawls all over this thing. The night-janitorial staff signed it. Even the scrawny kid job-shadowing for a school project left his mark on the back corner. Do you know so-and-so personally? No. Do you sincerely hope they have a happy birthday? Not especially. Does their having spent one more year on this Earth have any bearing on your life whatsoever? Nope. What business is it of yours, really?


Up for debate during Minnesota’s 87th Legislative Session are not one, but five cards that everybody wants to get their names on. Beginning in late January and as recently as last Monday the 7th, there have been five bills—SF103, HF201, SF264, SF265, HF391—introduced by a collective 71 authors (7 DFL, 64 GOP) that are not only similar in nature, they are verbatim copies of one another.


Are you sure about that? Yes, I am positive, but read one, any or all of them if you don’t believe me. They are identical.


These bills call for a constitutional ban that would prohibit “funding for state-sponsored health programs [to be] used for funding abortions.” In this context meanings “the use of any means to terminate the pregnancy of a woman known to be pregnant with knowledge that the termination with those means will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of the fetus and "fetus" means any individual human organism from fertilization until birth” as defined by Minnesota Statute 144.343, subdivision 3.


Because the 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court ruling on Doe v. Gomez established that a woman’s access to and ability to afford an abortion is a fundamental right and that “any proposed legislation that includes cuts to, or complete bans on, state funding for abortion
services is blatantly unconstitutional,” these proposed legislations appear to be the groundwork for a lawsuit; a decision Rep. Ryan Winkler (DFL) would prefer not be left up to the Supreme Court. “[Republicans] know that Tim Pawlenty appointed a majority to the Supreme Court that could overturn [Doe v. Gomez].”


Indeed the motivation behind these bills is dubious and unclear. If Republicans were chosen (read: voted) into majority on the premises of an agenda aimed to reboot our economy with “jobs, jobs, jobs,” then why the attack on a woman’s reproductive health, her personal business, as defined by Minnesota law? Most harshly victimized by this antichoice legislation are the low-income families who rely on state-sponsored health programs like MinnesotaCare.


Similarly, on tap for the fiscal year of 2011, on the national level, there is talk to de-fund Title X (aka the-thing-Nixon-did-right) which would virtually end Planned Parenthood as we know it. Not only do Planned Parenthood provide women with safe affordable access to abortion services, they also work tirelessly for access to preventative services as well. Services like comprehensive sex education, affordable contraception, STI/HIV screenings, all things that if de-funded would certainly cause a spike in unintended pregnancies and thus the need for abortions.


These five bills are a trap. A distraction from the larger issues facing our state. A no-win situation if you are a woman who doesn’t want to get pregnant, but can’t afford birth control or if you are a woman who is pregnant and can’t afford to be, but can’t afford not to be either.