Fundamentalists abroad and at home

Iran's conservative-dominated parliament approved a draft bill that would allow abortion in the first four months of pregnancy if the woman's life is in danger or the fetus is malformed. I think it is sad that most Iranian clerics could support such a bill, whereas earlier this year the South Dakota congress tried to pass a bill that would effectively ban abortion even in these cases. Fortunately, the state senate killed the bill after it was sent back by the governor, but it is very disheartening that conservatives would try to so blatantly undermine the U.S.S.C. on a woman's right to choose. While the Iranian law would not support abortion in the case of unwanted pregnancies, I find it interesting that a place that we criticize as so religiously fundamentalist supports an obvious and pragmantic policy, when some of our own religious leaders and lawmakers at home do not.