As the Texas House of Representatives considered extreme anti-abortion legislation on Sunday, orange-clad opponents packed the House gallery and Capitol rotunda to demand that politicians stay out of women’s private medical decisions. They far outnumbered blue-wearing anti-abortion activists at the Capitol, a fact that bothered state Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Houston, one of the Legislature’s most extreme religious-righters. Riddle wrote this vicious Facebook post around 7:30 p.m.:
“This is a tough fight – the Gallery is full of orange shirts – very few blue – orange are the ones I call Pro-death. I am Pro-life – so they must be Pro-death. A human is a human prior to birth just as it is human after it is born. We have killed 50 million babies after Roe v Wade. Hitler killed 6 million people.”
We wonder if Riddle also thinks the folks at the Texas Medical Association, the Texas Hospital Association and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are “pro-death” because of their opposition to Sunday’s legislation. Medical professionals rightly get upset when they see politicians interfering in the patient-doctor relationship.
Perhaps one reason to oppose such interference is that politicians often don’t know what in the world they’re talking when it comes to medical matters. Exhibit A: State Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, R-Parker, in arguing against adding exceptions for rape and incest to a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, bizarrely claimed that “in the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out.” We don’t know whether Laubenberg is really that clueless or just figured her audience was. Her comment was appalling in any case. As was Riddle’s vile slander.
Do you think politicians have an unnatural interest in the private lives and medical decisions of Texans? Then join our campaign — www.tfn.org/cupidorstupid — to force politicians to mind their own business on issues like birth control, marriage and sex education.
UPDATE: Rep. Riddle appears to have taken down her Facebook post — but too late. Here’s a screen capture of the post on her Facebook page Sunday night:
Thank you for all of your efforts.
Debbie Riddle’s Facebook post is gone. Do you do screen captures of posts like that? You could post the screen capture here and on FB.
If we don’t attack at the core of their beliefs we have no moral courage.
Ben: We’re on it. Update coming shortly.
America is slipping into it’s own version of the dark ages, and Texas is helping lead the way…
This will work it’s way through the court system once again.
And all too sad, also.
The state Republicans are voting for this because they KNOW it violates the Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution as an attempt at nullification. Any U.S. District Court judge would throw the new law out in a heartbeat.
The Republican Party has too much vote-getting power invested in the abortion issue to allow it to become illegal. A pro-abortion America feeds the Republican need for votes. The thing that gets me is why these idiots in purple do not understand how they are being used and abused by their elected Republican officials who lie to them incessantly about this issue.
YEAH FOR WENDY DAVIS..WE NEED MORE LEGISLATORS SPEAKING UP FOR WOMEN JUST LIKE HER.
The lady does not even know her talking point history. The Nazis killed 6 million JEWS. There was this thing called WW2 that added a few to that number. And if one added up how many stood on the list Hitler WANTED to kill within his lifetime we come closer to a 100 million. He got stopped about halfway. But Russians are likely not ‘people’ in the mind of madam Riddle (btw, are Jews? No idea whether the lady belongs to the anti- or the philosemitic side of the RR).