From “Personhood” bills in Mississippi to vaginal probes in Virginia, Republican state legislatures across the nation can’t keep their minds, or their bills, out of the gutter. If you harbored any illusions that the people of Illinois are more enlightened than our backward Southern brethren, you give us too much credit.

Two bills are working their way through the Illinois House that specifically address the state’s most urgent concern: reproductive rights.

HB 4085, also known as the “Ultrasound Opportunity Act” (see, they’re for opportunity!), would require doctors to offer a woman an ultrasound exam before proceeding with an abortion. If the woman declines the ultrasound, she has to sign a form that will be collected and stored by the state.

To be clear: Illinois law already requires physicians to provide ultrasounds to women seeking abortions upon request. And a lot of abortion providers, like Planned Parenthood, perform ultrasounds before every abortion to see how far along the pregnancy is.

HB 4085 would not make a single ultrasound available that isn’t already. The ultrasound, which in most cases would need to be invasive (to see the tiny fetus), has no medical benefit for the woman. It is purely for emotional effect. The bill’s only purpose is to shame women out of having abortions, and make very clear that the shame is coming from the state.

The GOP’s “women problem” is not a liberal canard. It is the product of a worldview that sees women as quaint, fragile homemakers whose weak minds are under constant assault from the lesbian “feminazi” (Limbaugh’s term) influence to kill their babies and get full-time jobs.

This bill works only in a world where women haven’t gone through the deep emotional decision, saved up money and taken time off work to have the procedure—where they just wander in on a whim until a doctor says, “But that’s a baby!”

In the real world, it’s emotional abuse and the documentation is an invasion of privacy.

In classic GOP-Freudian style, the bill was passed through the Illinois House Agriculture Committee, which normally considers legislation regulating domestic farm animals. You know I didn’t have to make that up.

HB 4117, also pending in the House, would require facilities that perform 50 or more abortions per year to comply with the building codes of a small hospital. This tactic has been used to shut down abortion clinics in several other Midwestern states. Clinics that provide abortions generally cater to low-income patients and are not flush with cash. By imposing building codes that require the facilities to widen hallways, build extra exits and add electrical outlets, the state can shut down clinics that can’t afford to remodel.

It isn’t part of some health care facility overhaul, either. HB 4117 applies only to abortion facilities. Change the word “abortion” to “surgery,” and it would close physicians’ offices all over the state, including most plastic surgery providers.

Republicans would love to pretend that talk of a “GOP war on women” is a misleading Democratic construct that attempts to brand the party with the foaming sexism of Rush Limbaugh or medieval gender roles of Rick Santorum.

Republicans only have themselves to blame, having dragged up an issue the rest of us thought was mostly settled. The 2010 crowd showed up on day one with axes, grindstones and mommy issues at the ready.

For years, Republican voters have demanded purity of convictions above all else. They’ve gotten their wish. The new guys aren’t pandering, they’re the real deal. They are crystallizing the insipid invective of the far-right into the insidious actions of the state. They may set us back 50 years in a single term. Imagine what they would undo with a second.

Dave Balson is a senior journalism major.

He can be reached at 581-7942 or DENopinions@gmail.com.