Morning Roundup: Baltimore CPC Law Struck Down

Beth Saunders

Oral sex and head and neck cancer, Baltimore CPC law is struck down, parental notification in New Mexico, making judicial bypass harder on teens, and a cosponsor of the "it's not rape unless you're forced" bill says they didn't mean it that way.

Oral sex and head and neck cancer, Baltimore CPC law is struck down, parental notification in New Mexico, making judicial bypass harder on teens, and a cosponsor of the “it’s not rape unless you’re forced” bill says they didn’t mean it that way.

  • Today is the last day of January – which is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month – but it is important to remember that other cancers are caused by HPV as well. Researchers say oral sex may be to blame for the rise in head and neck cancers among younger people, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
  • In 2009, Baltimore, MD, passed the first law in the country requiring so-called “crisis pregnancy centers” to post signs saying that they do not provide or refer for abortion. A federal judge struck down the statue Friday, saying it was a violation of the First Amendment. The Center for Reproductive Rights said it will appeal the ruling. The judge who made the ruling listed a few ways the city could accomplish its goal of requiring truth from CPC’s:

    The city could, he wrote, “use or modify existing regulations governing fraudulent advertising to combat deceptive advertising practices by limited-service pregnancy centers.”

    Alternatively, Garbis wrote, the city “could enact a new content-neutral advertising ordinance applicable to noncommercial entities that directly ameliorate the [city’s] concerns regarding deceptive advertising.”

  • A legislator in New Mexico just introduced a parental notification law for that state, although it is not expected to become law.
  • Speaking of young women and abortion, Ohio lawmakers are pushing for stricter judicial bypass standards, saying they are concerned about a “rubber-stamp” by judges. Ohio has a parental consent law on the books. Lawmakers now want the judge ruling on a bypass to ask about a “minor’s understanding of the possible physical and emotional complications of the abortion procedure and, if faced with such complications, how she would address and treat the situation.” And when she’s done jumping through those hoops, she should also have to tame a tiger, and then walk over coals, and then cross a plank over a pit of alligators, and then…
  • A Democratic sponsor of Chris Smith’s “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” – you know, the one that redefines rape – says it really doesn’t redefine rape, or at least they didn’t mean to do so. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL) said in a statement, “The language of H.R. 3 was not intended to change existing law regarding taxpayer funding for abortion in cases of rape, nor is it expected that it would do so.”

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