I Laughed. I Cried. It was Much Better Than Cats.

James Taranto does it again

Opinionjournal.com's Best of The Web, Last Item
An outrageous, and in some ways devilishly logical, look at a strange incident in which a woman who was not pregnant got an abortion.

Common Ground in the Abortion Debate: "A doctor . . . could have his medical license suspended or revoked for allegedly performing an abortion on a woman who wasn't pregnant," reports the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat. The complaint accuses Dr. Yogendra Shah "of performing an abortion on a woman on March 26, 1998, when she was not pregnant. The doctor failed to perform a test to determine whether the woman was pregnant, according to the complaint."

We had no idea it was illegal to perform an abortion on a woman who isn't pregnant, and frankly, this law is insane. If a woman isn't pregnant, even pro-lifers have no reason to object to her having an abortion. And on the other side, why in the world should a woman have to get pregnant in order to exercise her right to choose? Then there's the unconscionable invasion of privacy this law entails. Pro-choice advocates say that mandatory counseling or a 24-hour waiting period puts an undue burden on a woman's right to choose. But neither of these measures seems anywhere near as intrusive as forcing her to take a pregnancy test.

Furthermore, dropping the pregnancy requirement for abortion would do away with a great injustice in existing law, under which men, who through no fault of their own can't get pregnant, are denied the right ever to have an abortion. Get your laws off our body!

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