Today Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed sweeping anti-abortion legislation that severely restricts women’s ability to make their own medical decisions and decide whether and when to have children. Thousands of women and men from across the state have come to the Texas Capitol in recent weeks to protest the legislation’s passage. Many others took action in their local communities to organize opposition to this newest assault in the right’s war on women and women’s health care.
The question before all of us now is: will you remember? Will you remember the politicians and activist groups who put government between women and their doctors? Will you remember the contempt that so many of those politicians and activists expressed during this debate?
We’ve already reported about some of the outrageously offensive rhetoric from the right. State Rep. Bill Zedler, R-Arlington, for example, called opponents of the bill “terrorists.” Cathie Adams, head of the far-right group Texas Eagle Forum, sneeringly called them “stinky stalking feminists” and “feminazis.” Another right-wing activist, Peggy Venable of Americans for Prosperity-Texas, called opponents “nasty” and declared that they “should not procreate” and should be sterilized. Others even called state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, “murderer in chief.” and a “Human Barbie Doll.”
In fact, while Sen. Davis courageously filibustered in June — for more than 11 hours — in an attempt to stop the assault on women’s access to reproductive health care, state Rep. Dan Flynn, R-Van, couldn’t hide his contempt:
Two weeks later, state Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills, similarly attacked the motives of legislators opposing the bill:
State Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, claimed to know four Democrats in the state House who supported the anti-abortion bill but voted against it because of “threats from party leadership.” He didn’t name them, of course. Nor did he acknowledge the pressure put on House Republicans by religious-right groups supporting the bill. So this absurd tweet from Leach wasn’t surprising:
As we have already shown, many insulting comments were directed toward citizens who came to the Capitol to express their opposition to legislation they see as a danger to women and women’s health care. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst pounded his chest:
The lieutenant governor also couldn’t resist trying to tie the debate in Texas to national politics, ridiculously denouncing what he called the “Obama-style, mob-rule politics” of opponents:
“The message sent by the angry throng gathered from across the country was clear: they will stop at nothing to undermine conservative Texas values. When abortion activists attack the sanctity of life, when the Supreme Court erodes the nuclear family and the Obama administration imposes radical environmentalism on our economy, I have four words for them: COME AND TAKE IT!”
State Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, who accused opponents of bringing “feces, urine, used tampons and bricks to throw at DPS” troopers at the Capitol, also repeated the absurd exaggeration about opponents chanting “Hail Satan.” His Twitter post linked to a video that actually showed a single protester mockingly use those words:
Post your own comments about other outrageous and offensive rhetoric you heard from the right during the debate over the past two months. But more important, don’t forget. Don’t forget what they said about you and other citizens who proudly stood against their war on women and women’s health care.
Yes, can’t wait to cast a straight pro-choice ticket.
Iwill WELL remember it… and am reminding many others to do like wise..VOTE OUT REPUBLICANS
The reports I saw had the LEFT wing activists bring urine and feces to the capital…. that makes for intelligent exchange of thought…. NOT. A question I can never gat an answer to….. How many days away from projected birth date is too close to have an abortion?
Carroll: No proof. It was invented out of whole cloth to distract from the embarrassment of tampon and pad confiscation.
These are “fighting words.” They should be replied to with large-caliber guns and high explosives. The time for compromise is past. It’s time to plant these people in the ground they are not worthy to stand upon.
By the way, for those who missed the fun news about the Texas Legislature’s latest moves…
http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=832&Bill=HB59
Here is their weak excuse for “evidence” (by the way, these things were reported outside of the GALLERY door, not the main entrance – now just now does someone get all that feces and urine through security without being arrested or sent away?).
http://blog.chron.com/texaspolitics/2013/07/senator-says-blogosphere-tipped-dps-off-to-potential-violence/
Yes, the radical and extreme religious right-wing Republicans in the Texas Lege have really gone off the deep-end with their wildly insulting and untrue comments about Democratic legislators and supporters. In fact, as serious and informed people know, the anti-abortion bill greatly THREATENS the health of women by forcing more of them to bring unwanted pregnancies to term and by shutting down almost all Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas that primarily provide essential women’s health and birth control care. It will also have the effect of costing the state and citizens much more money because women will have to turn to charity from hospitals for emergency medical care when back-alley abortions go awry or they become ill due to lack of preventative health care that they would normally receive from PP clinics.
Perhaps this will finally be the tipping point for unmotivated voters to toss out the ignorant, misogynistic, and callous Republicans from state government for once and for all and terminate their war on women/children/immigrants/minorities/students/teachers/environment/science/taxpayers/voters/gays/working people/middle class/etc.
It never happened. They made the claim early on, but then couldn’t produce any evidence for it. It doesn’t make any sense anyway. And don’t you think someone would have been ticketed or arrested?
The difference between the articles we both posted, Carroll, is that in the one I posted a SENATOR admitted that they had READ about the feces and urine while monitoring the “blogosphere.” I’m not sure if you are aware, but anyone can put anything on the internet. It does not legitimatize slander and it should not incriminate innocent citizens. All of this went down, all 18 jars of whatever or whatever they said, and nobody got video or pictures to put out on social media? No officers are willing to even say they have evidence of this. It’s a weak smear campaign and even that is an overstatement.
Back to the serious question I never get an answer to….. How many days away from projected birth date is too close to have an abortion?
Aw!!! That’s easy—327 days for the 100 percent who will one day use birth control so abortions will not be needed. Chew on this and beg for forgiveness Carroll:
“Anti-Abortionist Batting Percentages” by Baptist preacher Dr. Bruce Prescott
(Posted for educational purposes only)
I heard Oklahoma State Senator John Sparks speak today at noon. He made much of how little the Religious Right had to show for 34 years of political activity in regard to abortion. His talk reminded me of comments (with minor modifications) I made years ago about fundamentalist batting percentages:
Whenever the Religious Right gets desperate to convince mainstream Christians to see things their way, they often pull out a bat and try to knock people out of the Christian ballpark.
Their favorite club is the “You can’t be a Christian if you don’t agree with me!” stick. Jerry Falwell was an MVP at swinging this bat. In September 2004 he said, “You cannot be a sincere, committed born-again believer who takes the Bible seriously and vote for a pro-choice, anti-family candidate.”
If that’s not a home run, it is at least a triple. In the swing of a single sentence he made a connection that questioned the sincerity (first base), salvation (second base), and spiritual fidelity (third base) of anyone who doesn’t vote for candidates he approved.
Still, it frustrates the Religious Right to see a runner standing on third base. They’ve got to drive their point home. That’s why they always have a clean-up hitter on deck. The clean-up man swings the “You’ve got to be a baby killer!” stick. This one often clears mainstream Christians from the ballpark, but not because they are convinced. They leave because they don’t know how to respond to people so insulting.
I’ve learned that the only way to hold your own in a political game with Fundamentalists is to turn the tables on them. That’s why I always keep a quote from C. Everrett Koop handy. C. Everrett Koop was the Surgeon General in the Reagan Administration. He co-authored, with Francis Schaeffer, the book and film series that educated most evangelicals about abortion — Whatever Became of the Human Race. In Bill Martin’s book, With God On Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America, Koop explains why he dropped out of the abortion controversy:
If the pro-life people in the late 1960’s and the early 1970’s had been willing to compromise with the pro-choice people, we could have had an abortion law that provided for abortion only for the life of the mother, incest, rape, and defective child; that would have cut the abortions down to three percent of what they are today. But they had an all-or-nothing mentality. They wanted it all and they got nothing.
Note that the exceptions Koop described coincide exactly with the exceptions that Southern Baptists supported before the political takeover of the SBC. Since the takeover, Southern Baptists have shifted to the “all-or-nothing mentality.”
The truth is, even if the Fundamentalists were correct about all abortions being murder, then conservative Christian intransigence is responsible for 97% of the murders and compromising mainstream Christians are guilty of 3%. None of us will come out of this guiltless, but one percentage requires a lot less grace.
I remember Iraq, Schaivo, Katrina, the 47%, and on and on. Republican should be a four letter word.
I was there. It was awful. I will NEVER forget.
Back to the serious question I never get an answer to….. How many days away from projected birth date is too close to have an abortion?
Depending on the conditions there is no final date. In case of extreme birth complications abortion and birth may even coincide. SCOTUS set the date of viability as a limit for non emergency abortions which is currently interpreted as about 24 weeks into the pregnancy. But one has to consider that many of the proposed laws shifting the date closer to conception* also try to exclude some or all emergency clauses, i.e. a literal interpretation would also ban abortions when the physiscian cannot guarantee that the woman would otherwise die.
*in some cases to a date where many women are not even aware that they are pregnant. Many women do not have a regular menstruation cycle, so a six week gap would not be proof (and this does not even include the bureaucratic hurdles that have to be jumped before the abortion can take place).
Oh, you can bet ole Charles won’t forget. This WASP has never done so before, but I plan to personally campaign for Democrats in the Hispanic community in 2014 and 2016. The Republican Party is trying to close down my favorite Mexican restaurants by sending all their workers back to Mexico. Hell, keep this up and there will no longer be a decent chimichanga left anywhere between Bangor and San Diego—and you can thank Christian fundamentalists and their “running dog lacky” Republicans for that.
Yep, come 2014 and 2016, I am going to run those election 2012 Hispanic vote numbers up higher that the moon. Get ready boys ’cause you is going to be political dead meat.
If women are so incompetent that they can’t be trusted to make their own healthcare decisions, I think we should all call our representative to get advice on every decision we have to make for a few days. We can never be too careful, you know.
Back to the serious question I never get an answer to….. How many days away from projected birth date is too close to have an abortion?.
I’m sure that Rick Perry views this new law as part of what he calls “a culture of life”.
It would be interesting to actually count how many lives are saved that can be attributed to this law.
But I have the chilling suspicion that the number will be negative.
Will we remember the disgusting coat hanger recommendations made by right wing commentators?
The answer is that it varies depending on circumstance and women should have the freedom to choose what is best for their own bodies when in those situations. If you want something more concrete ask a doctor, not a Facebook post. If you’re trying to make a point, just make it.
Well, if nothng else, this thread has inspired an idea for a new over-the-counter laxative. None of the old ones work anymore. I have come up with a name for it:
“Fece-Ease”