Someone I don't like

I've been meaning to blog on Gordon Copeland's private members bill that is in the ballot. From No Right Turn:

Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion (Informed Consent) Amendment Bill (Gordon Copeland): I have little information on this, but according to Mr Copeland it "introduces Counselling into the process before a woman makes a final decision to request an abortion". Mr Copeland did not provide a copy of the bill (and the Clerk's Office will generally not provide the "fair copy" MPs are required to submit in case their bill is drawn), so exactly what such "counselling" will entail will have to be left to the imagination.

Idiot/Savant is right that the question is whether this will be to introduce compulsory counselling - as the statement from Gordon Copeland suggests, or involve pictures of enlarged fetuses, and scare-mongering lies that the wages of sin is death, as the title implies (to anyone who knows anti-abortionist tactics). I think it's probably the second, because my understanding is that compulsory counselling is policy at many of the clinics anyway.

What is interesting to me is that there seems to be an increase in abortion related legislation, and what the purpose could be. The parliamentarians advancing laws seem to be copying crappy American laws states put through in the hope that they're going to get around Roe vs Wade (or whatever the actual standard is now, I can't remember). Which to me seems that they're not that interested in limiting abortions, and more interested in trying to build up a base, and sending signals, while not pissing anyone off too much.

There are areas of the current law that you could play around with that would actually restrict access, we've got an awful law, it's not hard. They'd have as much chance of passing as the law changes people are suggesting (ie none), so why not put them forward?