The state of South Dakota established a “Task Force to Study Abortion”, mandated to issue a report on abortion in general, and policy recommendations for South Dakota. Ann at Feministing notes that almost half of the Task Force’s 17 members were anti-abortion activists, and only 2 were identified as pro-choice.

The Report itself is a hack job of anti-choice rhetoric: literally every paragraph is framed to comment negatively on abortion, without the slightest recognition of the role sexual autonomy plays in women’s lives or arguments in favor of abortion rights. It is filled with absurd anti-choice tropes, such as extensive “DNA evidence” that a fetus is a “human being” in the biological sense, and no discussion whatsoever of reasons why or how that corresponds to moral personhood; the report actually notes that the latter is distinct from the former, then explicitly conflates the two on the very next page without discussion. It quotes extensively from the egregiously mendacious Bernard Nathanson, as well as a parade of anti-choice witnesses who claim they were “harmed by abortion”. (The report actually notes that “in every instance” these witnesses were anti-abortion, without noting that they were recruited as anti-abortion witnesses. Yes - the Task Force discovered that 100% of anti-abortion activists are anti-abortion, and actually cited that fact as a finding! This is the level of intellectual work the group turned in.) No mention whatsoever is made of pro-choice witnesses.

The Report concludes, from its “scientific fact” that a fetus is biologically distinct from its parents, that it constitutes a “second patient” and that a doctor violates a professional obligation to that fetus in performing an abortion. This is a mangling of ethical reasoning that not even the rankest anti-choice hack would attempt: it is, technically, a circular argument, but more than that it is simply an argument that contains no argumentation at all - simply a definitive assumption about the moral status of the fetus that is in fact the center of the abortion controversy to begin with. It also expends extensive energy explicitly criticizing Planned Parenthood - the only abortion provider they studied - with such gems as:

We find first that Planned Parenthood fails to inform the pregnant mother in any language that her unborn child is in existence. It is impossible for a woman to give informed consent to an abortion if she does not fully understand that her child is in existence, and that she is consenting to the termination of the life of her child.

Do they seriously believe that Planned Parenthood has deceived pregnant women as to the existence of their fetus? Do they seriously believe women who seek abortions are doing so in ignorance of the existence of their own fetuses? (These women, presumably, want an abortion . . . for no reason whatsoever?) This is not merely a bizarre and manufactured complaint, but it exhibits all the infantilization and contempt for women that characterizes the anti-choice position.

Bizarrely, it even makes the complaint that:

We find that Planned Parenthood has confused the objective biological fact that the procedure terminates the life of a live human being with the moral or value judgment of what respect or value should be placed upon the life of that human being. . . . [T]he pregnant mother can apply her own discrete personal, moral or religious values to her circumstance only after accurate biological facts concerning the existence and nature of her unborn child are disclosed.

This is a bit rich coming from the authors of this report. But it is also very confused: the most-controversial moral question associated with abortion is whether the fetus holds any distinct moral status sufficient to override the woman’s desire to terminate her pregnancy. As the Task Force notes, this is a moral, not a biological question. But they themselves - not PP - confuse those two issues by insisting that the moral question can only be determined by consideration of the fact that the fetus is “a human being” in the biological sense. Their complaint, in fact, hinges on language in PP brochures and videos that refers to “the contents of the uterus”, and so forth - that is, on PP’s failure to use the particular term “human being” to refer to the fetus. But that term can have moral significance only if one has previously determined - on moral grounds - that it does. It can hardly be claimed (though - as above, the Task Force seems to claim it) that the women don’t know they are actually pregnant. Despite their language, it is not the “existence” of the fetus that the Task Force thinks the women are confused about; it is the fact that that fetus occupies a status the Task Force members regard as morally significant, and PP has not cooperated in using the language the Task Force feels most reflects their particular moral beliefs about that fact, that they object to. But objecting on that ground is precisely to invade the realm of decisionmaking they themselves have said - and the Roe v. Wade decision mandates - must be the woman’s alone.

The Task Force also relies upon hoary myths of post-abortion psychosis, and criticizes Planned Parenthood for making factually accurate statements such as:

1. “Early abortion by vacuum aspiration is one of the safest procedures in all
medicine.”
2. “A legal abortion, as it is performed in the United States today, is a very safe procedure and complications are rare.”
3. “The emotion most women experience after having had an abortion is relief.”

There’s more: the nonsense goes on for over 70 pages, and ends with a lengthy pro-life rant and a recommendation for a complete ban on abortion. In a telling footnote, they blithely disclose that:

The Task Force has not examined the question of whether any exceptions are necessary – i.e., whether an abortion is ever medically necessary, even to save the life of the mother.

The pro-choice members of the committee were prohibited from releasing a minority report. The Task Force also makes a number of slanted and, often, extremist recommendations, including:

1. Amend the State Constitution to include provisions that provide the unborn child, from the moment of conception, with the same protection of the law that the child receives after birth and also provide protections for the mother-child relationship.

2. Require the abortion doctor to personally complete, while questioning the woman in confidence, a written form provided by the State that specifically asks the woman if she is being pressured into having the abortion. If she indicates that she is being pressured, require that the abortion shall not be performed.

3. Require the abortion doctor to verify the age of the patient and the father of the unborn child, and require the abortion doctor to report to the appropriate authorities any sexual activity that is contrary to South Dakota law.

4. Require strict reporting requirements concerning the reasons a woman is seeking an abortion. The report must contain a written disclosure by the doctor as to whether or not continuing the pregnancy threatens the health or life of the woman. If the threat exists, the doctor must detail the nature of the threat.

5. Require that the State create a written disclosure form that requires the abortion doctor to provide the mother, in person, with all of the risks of abortion to the mother and her unborn child. Require that this disclosure take place before the woman pays for the abortion and before she is taken to the procedure room. Require that the mother must also be provided sufficient time for personal review and discernment.

6. Require that no abortion can be performed unless the pregnant mother, prior to making an appointment for an abortion, receives counseling and disclosures about the nature of the risks and the alternatives to abortion by a pregnancy care center that does not perform abortions.

7. Require that the abortion doctor show the pregnant mother a quality ultrasound image of her unborn child before the procedure is performed and prior to her signing the consent form on which she indicates that she viewed the ultrasound.

8. Require the abortion doctor to have hospital privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the location where the abortion is performed.

9. Require that the South Dakota Vital Statistics include disclosure of all facilities that perform abortions in South Dakota as well as the number of abortions performed per year at each facility.

10. Strengthen laws so that abortion facilities are thoroughly regulated and regularly inspected by the South Dakota Department of Health or other proper authority.

11. Strengthen the child support laws, including the requirement that the father of an unborn child support the mother and their unborn child during the pregnancy and thereafter. 12. Strengthen laws that provide financial and other support to pregnant women so that lack of support no longer compels a woman to seek an abortion.

13. Strengthen and clarify existing public policy regarding character development education pursuant to SDCL 13-33-6.1. Such clarifications should include a definition of sexual abstinence and a statement that abstinence education in South Dakota is to exclude contraceptive-based sexuality education.50 14. Any other legislation that has as its goal to decrease the number of abortions in our State.

Recall that these recommendations come after a recommendation of a complete ban on all abortions across the board. Many of these suggestions are obviously designed to intimidate or manipulate patients seeking abortions; others are designed to burden abortion providers to the point that they cannot actually practice. Others serve to intrude the state further into women’s privacy and autonomy - demanding reasons and justifications for abortions that the Task Force previously had sanctimoniously said were the woman’s decision alone; requiring unnecessary and manipulative “informed consent” procedures that the woman is not allowed not to submit to, while making her supposedly private and personal decision; requiring submission to “informed consent” counseling at an anti-choice facility, and so on.

The Report, and its recommendations, are a parody of healthcare policy-making. They say nothing useful, or even rational, about abortion, and will stand as a laughingstock among medical and bioethics professionals forever. The Report will provide fodder for that division of the anti-choice wing that has taken up war against Planned Parenthood as its distinct struggle, but that group hardly requires factual or rational material t0 ground its activities on.

More than anything, this Report exemplifies the highly partisan, wholly ideological nature of “medical ethics” on the right wing. This is an extremist version of the absurdities of the President’s Council on Bioethics and so many other right-wing advocacy organizations. It may be a sign of the kinds of “bioethics” we can expect from them in the future - the kinds of “analysis” that, as in the case of global warming, tobacco, handguns, and other pet right-wing causes, serve only to provide professional-seeming cover for wholly non-rational and irresponsible activism. If so, this is a sad day for bioethics.

Hat tip: Ann at Feministing.

UPDATE: Echidne of the Snakes has some good commentary on the report also, noting further absurdities such as one physician’s testimony that abortion in cases of incest was not necessary because incest does not usually result in genetic defects, while offering the bizarre speculation that incest could also result in “the genius range of intellect” by combining “good genes”; the fact that not only was almost half the Task Force pre-committed anti-choicers, but 16 of its 17 members were men; and one of the anti-choice members defended the obviously one-sided Report and the exclusion of pro-choice supporters by stating explicitly that they had been limited because the express purpose of the committee was to “gain freedom for the unborn and all those who have been victims of abortion”.