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<div class="timestamp">March 16, 2012</div>
<h1>Politicians Swinging Stethoscopes</h1>
<span><h6 class="byline">By <a rel="author" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/gailcollins/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Gail Collins" class="meta-per">GAIL COLLINS</a></h6>
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<p>
Let’s take a look at sex and state legislatures. </p>
<p>
Never a good combo. Lawmakers venture into murky waters when they
attempt to deal with the mysteries of human reproduction. The results
are generally short of scientific. Once, when I was covering the
Connecticut House of Representatives, a bill introduced at the behest of
professional musicians, “An Act Concerning Rhythm Machines,” was
referred to the Public Health Committee under the assumption that it was
about <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/specialtopic/birth-control-and-family-planning/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Birth Control and Family Planning." class="meta-classifier">birth control</a>. </p>
<p>
That was a long time ago, but a definite high note. Normally when these
matters come up in a state capitol, the result is not chuckles. </p>
<p>
New Hampshire, for instance, seems to have developed a thing for linking
sex and malignant disease. This week, the State House passed a bill
that required that women who want to terminate a <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/pregnancy/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="Recent and archival health news about pregnancy." class="meta-classifier">pregnancy</a> be informed that abortions were linked to “an increased risk of <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/breast-cancer/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Breast cancer." class="meta-classifier">breast cancer</a>.” </p>
<p>
As Terie Norelli, the minority leader, put it, the Legislature is
attempting to make it a felony for a doctor “to not give a patient
inaccurate information.” </p>
<p>
And there’s more. One of the sponsors, Representative Jeanine Notter,
recently asked a colleague whether he would be interested, “as a man,”
to know that there was a study “that links the pill to <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/prostate-cancer/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Prostate Cancer." class="meta-classifier">prostate cancer</a>.” </p>
<p>
This was at a hearing on a bill to give employers a religious exemption from covering <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/specialtopic/birth-control-and-family-planning/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Birth control and family planning." class="meta-classifier">contraception</a>
in health care plans. The article Notter appeared to be referring to
simply found that nations with high use of birth control pills among
women also tended to have high rates of prostate cancer among men.
Nobody claimed that this meant there was scientific evidence of a
connection. You could also possibly discover that nations with the
lowest per capita number of ferrets have a higher rate of prostate
cancer. </p>
<p>
Bringing the prostate into the fight was definitely a new wrinkle. But it’s getting very popular to try to legislate an <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/surgery/abortion/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Abortion." class="meta-classifier">abortion</a>-breast
cancer link. I suspect this is at least in part because politicians in
some states are being forced to stretch to find new ways to torture
women who want to end an unwanted pregnancy. It’s sort of like gun
control — once your state already has guaranteed the right to wear
concealed weapons into bars and churches, you’re going to have to start
getting really creative to reaffirm a commitment to the Second
Amendment. </p>
<p>
Last year, South Dakota — which has a grand total of one abortion
provider — instituted a 72-hour waiting period, plus a requirement that
the woman undergo a lecture at one of the state’s anti-abortion
pregnancy counseling centers. </p>
<p>
This law is tied up by litigation. While they’re waiting, the
legislators have improved upon their work, requiring the doctor to ask
his patient — who may have already traveled for hours, waited for three
days and gone through the counseling center harangue — questions
including what her religious background is and how she thinks her family
might react to the decision to end the pregnancy. </p>
<p>
“South Dakota has taken the I.R.S. audit model and applied it to women’s
reproduction,” said Ted Miller of Naral Pro-Choice America. </p>
<p>
But about this <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/cancer/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Cancer." class="meta-classifier">cancer</a> business. </p>
<p>
“Now we’re seeing why legislatures getting into the practice of medicine
is dangerous,” said Barbara Bollier, a Republican state representative
in Kansas, where a bill requiring doctors to warn abortion patients
about the breast cancer connection is pending. </p>
<p>
Bollier is a retired anesthesiologist, who also formerly taught
bioethics. If you wanted to have a résumé guaranteed to drive you crazy
in the Kansas State Legislature, she’s got it. </p>
<p>
We had a very interesting discussion over the phone about good science —
what makes a reliable study, and how an early suggestion of a possible
connection between abortions and breast cancer was overtaken by larger,
better studies that showed no evidence of a link whatsoever. All of this
has been shared with the Kansas Legislature, to no effect whatsoever.
</p>
<p>
Bollier has her finger on the moral to all this. When faced with a
choice between scientific evidence and their personal and political
preferences, legislators are not going to go with the statistics. I have
warm memories of the committee of the Texas House of Representatives
that last year rejected a bill to require that public school sex
education classes be “medically accurate.” </p>
<p>
Let’s refrain from discussing how the people who are preparing to
legislate medical science are often the very same ones who scream about
government overreach when health experts propose taxing sugary
beverages. </p>
<p>
Just try to envision yourself in a doctor’s office for a consult. Then
imagine you’re joined by a state legislator. How many of you think the
situation has been improved? Can I see a show of hands? </p>
<p>
Thought so. </p>
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<br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br>