Pander bears on the loose

One from the Journal that I overlooked last week — a legislator's plan to create an "aborted fetus registry:"

This year, 61 bills were introduced in the state Legislature attempting to change existing abortion laws. Delegates Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, and John Overington, R-Berkeley; and Sen. Clark Barnes, R-Randolph, were among those to introduce the measures.

Legislators said they recognize that the initiatives are not likely to make much progress this year.

“That hasn’t been taken up, and the committee chairman isn’t going to have that on the agenda,” Overington said of House Bill 2149, for which he was the lead sponsor.

The measure, which was forwarded to the Committee on Health and Human Resources, aims to create an “aborted fetus registry.” The bill would require a “fetal death certificate,” and mandate that information about the fetus’ gestational age, the type of abortion performed and the age and county of residence of the woman receiving the abortion, be recorded. Any possible birth defects would also have to be noted, as would the “method of disposal of the remains,” the bill states.

Hot button tactics are nothing new for Overington. He's the same "pro-life" guy who want to bring executions back to W.Va., after all. And, along with pal Blair, felt the state was in some dire need of an amendment to the constitution to "protect" marriage from those scary gays.

Photo: AP