State Bill 69420
In North Dakota, abortion is legal, but Republican lawmakers have been talking about reducing abortion effectively. After consulting women’s rights groups, conducting in-depth research and asking North Dakota residents what they need, North Dakota will be passing a comprehensive overhaul of how the state talks about women’s health.
Our lawmakers would not hesitate to pass such basic legislation that benefits state residents, right?
The pink tax is gone! State funding will now be directed toward researching a wider variety of birth control options that are safer and more effective for women. Comprehensive sex education will now be taught in schools, so students understand the human reproductive organs, sex and boundaries.
Research shows this is an effective way to prevent pregnancy, so why wouldn’t lawmakers pass it. Surely, we would want to inform students on making wise decisions for themselves. It would be just silly not to give them all the facts.
In another bill, North Dakota will finally pass better criminal justice laws that protect LGBTQ people from violence. It is now considered a hate crime to attack people based on their gender identity or sexual orientation. People can no longer use a panic defense to get away with crimes against LGBTQ individuals.
Of course, with the new bill, you can not dismiss someone from jury duty based on gender identity. I would have thought that since all men are created equal, something like this would have passed already. After all, I wouldn’t want to prevent fair trials. Guess our representatives made a little oopsie!
The state will also be reevaluating how race is discussed in schools by talking to educators, specifically teachers and activists, to ensure that students are being taught correct history at developmentally appropriate ages. Instead of western history as a part of state education guidelines, that class will be replaced with world history. Why would students have a bird’s eye view of our collective history?
And then representatives also are forming a committee to fix our incredibly broken immigration system. With all the children in cages at the border, we finally decided we are going to do something about that. Then there are the millions of refugees that desperately need our help, and the system that takes advantage of people coming here for a better life, so we’ll get the ball rolling on some of that too.
Our lawmakers would not hesitate to pass such basic legislation that benefits state residents, right?