Did Garry Trudeau cross a line?

Conservatives are not laughing at “Doonesbury” comic strips this week.

The often-controversial strip by Garry Trudeau waded deep into the heart of the Texas abortion sonogram debate, with a week-long series focusing on a woman who enters a Texas abortion clinic and deals with a succession of bumbling pro-lifers. Some papers are not carrying this week’s strips.

The foil in Tuesday’s comic, for example, is a Texas legislator named Rep. Sid Patrick — an obvious reference to Texas Rep. Sid Miller and state Sen. Dan Patrick, the sponsors of the abortion sonogram bill.

In the strip, Patrick asks the woman if her “parents know she’s a slut” after she says she uses contraceptives.

"My skin is pretty thick, I'm disappointed at some of the papers for printing it inside the comic book pages," Miller told the News late Tuesday. "I don't see anything funny about it, the one yesterday or today, but I respect the right of Mr. Trudeau to give his opininon even if don't necessarily agree with it."

“Abortion remains a deeply contentious subject,” Trudeau told the AP. “Having said that, the goal is definitely not to antagonize editors and get booted from papers. It’s just an occupational risk.”

The comic strip’s distributer, Universal UClick Syndicate, offered its 1,400 newspaper subscribers the option of an alternate “Doonesbury” instead of the abortion-themed ones. "Doonesbury" apears in the print edition of The Daily News, but has never appeared on the web site because of rights issues.

“We have heard from 40 to 50 papers to ask for substitutes,” says Susan Rouch, the syndicate’s editor.

Other newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, decided to move the strip out of the comics pages and onto the Op-Ed pages.

"The kids reading 'Peanuts' or 'Nancy,' I don't think they're going to get much benefit out of read it," says Miller.

A number of newspapers, like the Oregonian, the Forth Worth Star Telegram and The Press of Atlantic City, decided to strip out the week’s “Doonesburys” entirely.

“In next week’s strip, ‘Doonesbury’ author Garry Trudeau, in our judgment, went over the line of good taste and humor in penning a series on abortion using graphic language and images inappropriate for a comics page,” the Oregonian editors wrote in a letter to readers.

Trudeau told Reuters that he was inspired by the “appalling” bills in Texas and Virginia that call for women to view an ultrasound of their unborn child before undergoing an abortion.

Not surprisingly, reaction to the “Doonesbury” story line pretty much fell along partisan lines. For instance, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow called newspapers that pulled the comics “cowardly.”

On the other side of the debate, “The decision to end a life isn’t funny,” Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s press secretary, Catherine Frazier, told the Dallas Morning News. “There is nothing comic about this tasteless interpretation of legislation we have passed in Texas to ensure that women have all the facts when making a life-ending decision.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/doonesbury-abortion-comic-strips-newspapers-partisans-divided-article-1.1038137

PS - I did a copy paste of the article. The misspellings throughout leave me kind of discouraged about the future of American journalism.

If you consider 'truth' to be a line in a backwater, medieval place like Texas, then yes - he crossed it.

I thought it was very well done, right down to the "Scarlet A". There's more actual truth there than hyperbole.

No lines crossed. If the sick bastards who are trying to make this law can't take it, too bad. Maybe Trudeau's work makes them squirm a little. As well they should.

Our paper has carried the strip in the editorial page for years. "But by depicting a lawmaker in the doctor's office, Trudeau is only making literal the essence of this outrageously intrusive law: government officials injecting themselves into the private lives of women."

I feel sorry for women in the godly part of the US.

Suzi wrote:I feel sorry for women in the godly part of the US.

I didn't realize Pennsylvania was in the Bible Belt.

Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania Governor, On Ultrasound Mandate: Just 'Close Your Eyes'

During a discussion of a far-reaching mandatory ultrasound bill, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) on Wednesday dismissed off-handedly the insinuation that the measure goes too far, saying, "You just have to close your eyes."

Corbett reaffirmed his support for the "Women's Right to Know" Act, which would require doctors to perform an ultrasound on a patient, offer her two personalized copies of the image and play and describe fetal heartbeat in detail before she can have an abortion -- "as long as it's not obtrusive."

He did not indicate whether or not he considered a transvaginal ultrasound to be an intrusive procedure, which the bill would require doctors to perform on a woman whose fetus is not developed enough to be visible by a regular, "jelly-on-the-belly" ultrasound.

Asked if he thinks the bill goes too far to make a woman look at the ultrasound image, Corbett responded, "You can't make anybody watch, okay? Because you just have to close your eyes. As long as it's on the exterior and not the interior."

Pennsylvania's ultrasound bill, unlike the revised version passed in Virginia, does not specify a type of ultrasound, so the doctor will have to use an "interior" procedure for most first-trimester abortions in order to meet the requirements of the law.

Even if the woman opts to "close [her] eyes," as Corbett suggests, the doctor will have to turn the ultrasound image toward her face, give her two signed copies of the printed image, describe the number of heartbeats per minute and tell her if that's normal or not for a fetus of that age. She then has to wait 24 hours and bring all the signed paperwork and both ultrasound images to her abortion doctor in order to have the procedure legally, and the doctor has to repeat to her the age of the fetus.

The Pennsylvania House postponed a scheduled vote on the bill this week because of "concerns raised by the medical community, among others," according to House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R).

Patrick Murphy, a Democratic candidate for attorney general, called Corbett's comments "disturbingly offensive" and demanded that he apologize to Pennsylvania women.

"It's bad enough that Governor Corbett wants to force women to get an unnecessary and invasive procedure as a means of getting a government permission slip to undergo legal medical care," he said in a statement. "It's worse yet that he wants to shame them by shoving an ultrasound screen in their face. But it's unthinkable that he would so casually dismiss this by advising women to just close their eyes."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/15/tom-corbett-ultrasound-bill-pennsylvania_n_1348801.html

The “Women’s Right-to-Know Act.” What a despicable euphemism for government mandated rape.

Well, his insensitive comments are not as bad as some other Repugnicans. Remember this McCain supporter from Texas?

"...Texas oilman Clayton Williams ... remarks that women should give in while being raped. 'As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it,' he said during his unsuccessful bid for governor against the late Ann Richards."

Are there really that many STUPID ppl in the U.S.? Why would anyong vote for these asswipes? Just pull the lever that says National Socialist uh ... Repugnican because you lack sense enuf to realize what they represent, or do they really believe this unconscionable bullshit?

Funny.

Shale wrote:Well, his insensitive comments are not as bad as some other Repugnicans. Remember this McCain supporter from Texas?

"...Texas oilman Clayton Williams ... remarks that women should give in while being raped. 'As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it,' he said during his unsuccessful bid for governor against the late Ann Richards."

oh yeah...this was the "flowing juices" asshole wasn't it?

[url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/womens-reproductive-right s_b_1345214.html[/url]

The rest of the civilized world thinks this country has lost its mind. It's no wonder. Look at this list of frenzied misogyny:

1. Making women carry still-born fetuses to full term because cows and pigs do. This week, Mr. Edwards, you supported a bill requiring just this, because of just that. It has passed the House in Georgia and might very well pass the Senate. Women are different from farm animals, Mr. England, and this bill, requiring a woman to carry a dead or dying fetus, with no possibility of abortion, even when the she is in danger of dying, is inhumane and unethical. By forcing a woman to do this, you are violating her right not to be subjected to inhuman treatment and tortured. And, yes, involuntarily carrying a dead fetus to term, although not torture to you or to a pig, is torture for a woman. It is also a violation of her bodily integrity and a threat to her life and as such violates her right to life.

2. Consigning women to death to save a fetus. Abortions save women's lives. "Let women die" bills are happening all over the country. There is no simple or pretty way to put this. Every day, all over the world, women die because they do not have access to safe abortions. Yet, here we are, returning to the dark ages of maternal sacrifice. Do really have to type this sentence: this is a violation of women's fundamental right to life.

3. Criminalizing pregnancy and miscarriages and arresting, imprisoning and charging women who miscarry with murder, like Rennie Gibbs in Mississippi or at least 40 other similar cases in Alabama or like Bei Bei Shuai, a mentally ill person, who is currently imprisoned and charged with murder after trying to commit suicide while pregnant. Pregnant women are becoming a special class subject to "special" laws that infringe on their fundamental rights.

4. Forcing women to undergo involuntary vaginal penetration (otherwise called rape) with a condom-covered, six- to eight-inch ultrasound probe. Pennsylvania is currently considering that option along with eleven other states. Trans-vaginal ultrasounds undertaken with out a woman's consent are rape according the legal definition of the word. This violates a woman's bodily integrity and also constitutes torture when used, as states are suggesting, as a form of control and oppression. Women have the right not to be raped by the state.

5. Disabling women or sacrificing their lives by either withholding medical treatment or forcing women to undergo involuntary medical procedures. We impose an unequal obligation on women to sacrifice their bodily integrity for another. For example, as in Tysiac v. Poland, in which a mother of two, became blind after her doctor refused to perform an abortion that she wanted that would have halted the course of a degenerative eye disease. If my newborn baby is in need of a kidney and you have a spare matching one, can I enact legislation that says the state can take yours and give it to her? No. We do not force people to donate their organs to benefit others, even those who have already been born. One of the most fundamental of all human rights is that humans be treated equally before the law. Denying a woman this right is a violation of her equal right to this protection.

6. Giving zygotes "personhood" rights while systematically stripping women of their fundamental rights. There is too much to say about the danger of personhood ideas creeping into health policy to do it here. But, consider what happens to a woman whose womb is not considered the "best" environment for a gestating fetus in a world of personhood-for-zygote legislation: who decides the best environment -- the state, her insurance company, her employer, her rapist who decides he really, really wants to be a father? Anyone but a woman.

7. Inhibiting, humiliating and punishing women for their choices to have an abortion for any reason by levying taxes specifically on abortion, including abortions sought by rape victims to end their involuntary insemination, imposing restrictive requirements like 24 hour wait periods and empowering doctors to lie to female patients about their fetuses in order to avoid prosecution. In Arizona, Kansas, Texas, Virginia, Colorado, Arkansas and other states around the country bills that make women "pay" for their choices are abounding.

8. Allowing employers to delve women's private lives and only pay for insurance when they agree, for religious reasons, with how she choses to use birth control. In Arizona, which introduced such a bill this week, this means covering payment for birth control as a benefit only when a woman has proven that she will not use it to control her own reproduction (ie. as birth control). As much as I am worried about women and families in Arizona though, I am more worried about those in Alabama. You see, as recently revealed in a public policy poll in Alabama, conservative, evangelicals who support "personhood" related "pro-life" legislation and are fighting for their "religious liberty" -- 21 percent think interracial marriage should be illegal. So, what if they decide that an employee involved in an interracial marriage should not, by divine mandate, reproduce? Do they switch and provide birth control for this employee? Do they make contraception a necessary term of employment for people in interracial marriages? This violates a woman's right to privacy. My womb is one million times more private than your bedrooms, gentlemen.

9. Sacrificing women's overall health and the well-being of their families in order to stop them from exercising their fundamental human right to control their own bodies and reproduction. Texas just did that when it turned down $35million dollars in federal funds thereby ensuring that 300,000 low-income and uninsured Texas women will have no or greatly-reduced access to basic preventive and reproductive health care.

10. Depriving women of their ability to earn a living and support themselves and their families. Bills, like this one in Arizona, allow employers to fire women for using contraception. Women like these are being fired for not.

You presume to consign my daughters and yours to function as reproductive animals.

It is the GOP who have crossed the line and declared war on women.

WAR ON WOMEN

I'm so glad I've gone through menopause--even if it took chemo to do it.

The Pennsylvania Governor said that if women didn't like it they didn't have to look.

As someone said on another forum, "This is not informing; this is punishing."

It boils down to medical rape.

Suzi wrote:It boils down to medical rape.

"By the autority vested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape."