So, Nebraska has passed a couple of laws to ban abortions. I cannot believe how patently ridiculous and short-sighted they are. Strike that, I can. Behind each and every law passed to restrict abortion is the religious intent to punish women for having sex. No other thought process would allow people to pass these laws completely ignorant of their consequences and outright irony.

For example. . .the first one “bars the procedure at and after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the assertion that fetuses can feel pain at that point.” So, after 20 weeks, an ultrasound and/or genetic testing determines that the child has, let’s say, a severe case of spina bifida or a congenital heart defect. As soon as the child is born, it will be whisked into surgery, and hooked up to tubes and wires. As soon as it has healed from that surgery, it will probably face more surgeries, quite possibly a lifetime of surgeries. If it survives, it will live a life full of pain. If it does not survive, which a doctor looking at the prenatal testing results would be able to predict with some accuracy, it will have lived its entire brief life in pain. So in what way does this bill show a merciful compassion for a freedom from pain? Late-term abortions are painless, since they are induced by anesthetic injected into the fetus. Just the way a merciful vet puts our pets to sleep – one shot to put the animal to sleep, a second to stop the heart. How is that more painful?

The second “requires women be screened before having abortions for mental health issues and other risk factors indicating if they might have problems afterward.” So, if it looks like a woman is so mentally fragile that she might flip out and go postal after an abortion, she’s a perfect candidate for motherhood. I sure as heck don’t want to be living in Nebraska about 15 years from now, because it’s going to be full of teenagers who were raised by mentally unstable women who didn’t want them in the first place.

Way to go, Nebraska!