The latest versions of the restrictive abortion bills are being debated in the second special session. Anti-choice speakers & “crowds” are being brought to Austin from Out Of State.
P S: Governor Rick will announce his political plans today…
Eh, I can’t get my dander up about bringing in speakers from out of state. That just makes sense, if out-of-state happens to be where prominent/persuasive people who support their position live.
Bringing in “crowds” from out of state is a lot more underhanded, but also a lot more nebulous and hard to prove/define. IMHO it only really becomes unethical and dishonest if that crowd is later presented, explicitly or implicitly, as specifically homegrown.
When one of the biggest complaints about the other side is that their speakers and crowds were brought in from out of state (hence, “illegitimate” in some sense), then one might say doing the same thing yourself is more than a touch hypocritical.
Yes, the anti-choicers have been loudly proclaiming that the pro-choice people in Austin were bused in from around the country by Planned Parenthood. Nope, they came from Austin–and other parts of the state.
Earlier this year, rural clinics that offered free or low cost contraception, pregnancy testing, STD testing & cancer diagnostics to women–and men–closed all over Texas.
These clinics did not offer abortions; in fact, they helped prevent unwanted pregnancies. There’s an attempt to claim Federal funds for women’s health without going through the legislature–but most of the clinics that closed can’t just be reopened…
Meanwhile, Governor Rick has been soaking up the free publicity as an anti-abortion crusader. (This fervor is really a new thing for him.) Surely it’s just a coincidence that he’s going to announce his plans today. The bets are: He’ll not run for governor again but remain coy about his plans to repeat his abortive try for the presidential nomination…
And Perry has said he will sign it, so this will soon be the law in Texas.
Personally, I’d like to see every medical doctor who doesn’t agree with the rationale behind the law leave the state. We’d welcome them warmly here in Nevada, for instance.
Fuck every member of the public who agrees with the Texas Legislature.
I don’t care about your stupid fucking rhetoric about how it’s about “improving the quality of care for women.” That is utter and complete total bullshit, and every sane, rational person who hears it can see right through it.
I knew this was inevitable, and yet I still don’t know how to feel. Yea, it was a democratically passed bill, but how the fuck is it anything but rule by fiat? Texas didn’t want the bill or the special session, but Rick Perry and others staked their national political careers on its passage. Vote 'um out, except Texas is gerrymandered to hell. And Texans hate Democrats on principle, so they’d rather make abortion illegal, fuck up the economy, fuck up women’s access to health care, fuck over the poor, etc etc rather than vote for them.
Where do you begin? How do you fight? How do you organize?
My only solution is to move, but not everyone has that privilege.
