South Dakota's Descent into Barbarity

One of the trick questions people get asked during job interviews for high-paying corporate positions is "Which one state would you not mind seeing excluded from the union?" I think after today the answer is very clear: South Dakota. A few years ago, that state made the whole civilized world gasp in horror as it tried to pass a measure banning abortion in all cases, including when pregnancy happened as a result of rape and/or incest. South Dakotans voted 56% to 44% against the measure, which itself doesn't say anything good about the huge chunk of the population that voted in favor of this cannibalistic measure.

Now South Dakota decided to make the headlines as the most ridiculously barbaric state in the union once again. This state must have felt that it was losing the contest for the most idiotic state in the country to Arizona and decided to regain lost ground. South Dakotan Republicans are arguing that while destroying a fetus is never OK, killing an actual live human being can be acceptable:

A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of "justifiable homicide" to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state's GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.
The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state's legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person "while resisting an attempt to harm" that person's unborn child or the unborn child of that person's spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman's father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one.

It is not surprising that the Republicans who scream so loudly about their hatred of the governmental intrusion into the citizens' lives would be so passionately involved in legislating governmental intrusion into people's bodies. It is equally not surprising that the Republicans care a lot more about a couple of non-viable cells more than about actual human beings. It is even less surprising that the Republicans favor killing off people whom they don't like. It is completely not surprising that the perennially sexually repressed Republicans can't leave any woman's uterus in peace without wanting to intrude into it and legislate it into the ground.

The only thing that is surprising here is that in the XXIst century a country that wants to consider itself civilized seriously engages in discussions of whether killing doctors should be legal.

Shame on you, South Dakota! You are an embarrassment to the entire country.