Good news

Especially good news for those of you who might have been too...um...busy...to thoroughly read and entirely absorb my post from yesterday. (Which seems to have been most of you! I know it was long, but come on, I don't get passionate about that many things here.)

The vigilance of the Internet has again netted real results. According to Maura in VA, Delegate Cosgrove has responded to the outpouring of opinion he received on this matter today. The bill he sponsored that ignited all of this will be revised before being presented for consideration by the Virginia legislature in such a way that will clarify the original intent of the bill, limiting it so that is will "apply only to those babies that are claimed to have been stillborn and that are abandoned." In other words, applying it only to what are called "trashcan" babies, who are abandoned after live birth or stillbirth in places, sadly, such as trashcans and Dumpsters and toilets, etc., instead of being left somewhere covered by a Safe Haven law.

I am still not convinced that the intention he says was the original aim of the bill was as well-meaning as he claims. But in the end, so long as a badly written and potentially abusive law doesn't come to pass, I will consider it a victory for privacy and, yes, decency, and let it rest.

On that note of restraint, I wish you an unrestrainedly good weekend. It will be back to your regularly scheduled mishmash of light(er)hearted who-knows-what here next week, so I hope you'll stop by then, ready to comment!

Update: After already agreeing to change the wording, Delegate Cosgrove has withdrawn the bill entirely. A Virginia news source, the Augusta Free Press Online, has this as its top story. The reason? "The language is just too confusing." You don't say...

I can't tell you how amazing it is to have been a teensy part of the "firestorm of controversy" that made this happen. All credit to Maura in VA and Getupgrrl for rallying women to stand up and reject this kind of intrusion into our lives and our bodies.