As Missouri House Republicans debate a slew of new restrictions on abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood, one lawmaker on the committee currently discussing the issue has suggested a novel idea.
Likely the most controversial idea came from Rep. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville. He suggested passing legislation that would force Planned Parenthood to build a memorial to aborted fetuses.
"We have (since 1973) 56 million babies that have been lost in the abortion service and industry, (so) I think maybe requiring that Planned Parenthood set up some type of memorial, like a Vietnam Wall type (memorial)," Brattin said. "I know that sounds crazy, but by state law (fetuses are) given human status, so should there be a human memorial attached to that human life?"
This isn't as much of a big government imposition on Planned Parenthood as it is on the would-be parents of fetuses that had to be aborted for whatever reason.
If you were to construct a Vietnam Wall of aborted fetuses, that would necessarily force Planned Parenthood to publish information that would-be parents may not want published. For example, the Vietnam Wall is covered in names.
Representative Rick Brattin may or may not be suggesting that Planned Parenthood should be required to publish the names of their patients, but a public memorial may provide enough information for third parties to identify them.
The exact nature of this ridiculous memorial proposal aside, the idea that government should be involved in publicly shaming women for undergoing a legal medical procedure is what's truly crazy.
The Missouri Attorney General's office conducted an investigation of Planned Parenthood and cleared the organization of wrongdoing, but that clearly hasn't swayed Republican lawmakers because this was never about fetal tissue research. It was always about abortion itself.