Whose Voice of America? » « No Soliciting. Really. No, Really.

Abortion in Texas: Good News and Really, Really Scary News

First the good news, from The Texas Tribune: “U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks ruled Texas cannot require health providers to bury or cremate fetuses, delivering another blow to state leaders in the reproductive rights debate.”  So the additional cost–both financial and, especially for those who miscarried or terminated wanted pregnancies, emotional–won’t be placed on women who seek abortions.  For now, anyway.

And now, the really, really scary news: one of our state representatives has filed a bill to make abortion a felony in Texas.  From The Texas Observer:

House Bill 948 would ban and criminalize abortions at any stage, direct state officials to ignore “any conflicting federal” laws, and would no longer exempt pregnancies as a result of rape, incest or fetal abnormalities. The bill would remove the exception for abortion in the state’s penal code for criminal homicide, meaning that women and providers could face charges as serious as murder for the procedure.

You read that right.  Both “women and providers” would face punishment.  Though there have been pushes in the past to punish women for having abortions, this bill sounds an awful lot like something we’ve heard recently from Trump, doesn’t it?

Whose Voice of America? » « No Soliciting. Really. No, Really.

Comments

  1. Kengi says

    Making abortion a felony serves the dual purpose of slut-shaming as well as vote suppression. Especially when the law gets selectively enforced.

  2. StevoR says

    There’s a group of radical Christian extremists in Florida who actually, openly want to impose the death penalty on women who have abortions as well as their doctors. See :

    http://churchandstate.org.uk/2016/09/florida-christians-want-to-kill-women-who-have-abortions/

    How very flippin’ “pro-life” eh?*

    From their own website which I will not link too although it can be found easily enough :

    Here is a proposed timeline to which I believe most abolitionists Christian taliban Coathanger abortion lobbyists (ed) would agree.

    1) Abortion is outlawed by virtue of the government’s recognition that preborn children have full and equal human rights from the moment of conception until the end of their lives.

    2) The most strenuous possible penalties (nice euphemism? – ed.) are put in place for aborticians (doctors, midwives, reproductive health care specialists – ed)and their staff and assistants. Obviously because of the ex post facto provisos in the Constitution, they would not be liable for their actions before the abolition of abortion.

    3) I would personally be in favor of a swift and not-particularly-painless execution for these murderers, but not every abolitionist Christalibanical Coathanger abortion lobbyist (ed.) will agree. Let us say that the consensus position would be closer to this: aborticians (doctors, midwives, reproductive health care specialists- ed) who continue to practice after the abolition of abortion should be severely punished.

    4) After abolition, the question of what, if any, punishment the government should apply to abortive mothers is murkier and undecided. Most would propose that punishments be considerably less severe relative to the aborticians’ penalties. Some would say that, to allow time for the implications of the new legal framework to sink in to people’s minds and hearts, we should slowly ramp up the severity of the penalties, such that a woman who seeks out an abortion one week after abolition would be punished less severely than a woman who seeks out an abortion 20 years afterwards.
    We do not necessarily believe that the best course of action should be to apply the death penalty to abortion immediately after criminalisation. The mother bears some guilt, but those who know for sure what they are doing bear much more.

    Emphasis incl. italcising added – & no I will NOT allow these misogynistic wanna be Taliban dictators sully the word “abolitionist” by hijacking it and calling themselves that. This is a n extremely nasty group that wants to enslave others not free them. Reading their website FAQ section in depth shows them to be pretty clearly racists as well.

    So watch this space – no, watch this hate group – because they are deadly serious and they have a POTUS who think think and hope agrees with them and may well let them have their way here. Watch the SCOTUS nomination(s) too.

    * Does that really need a sarcasm tag?

  3. StevoR says

    Also though this is from Colorado instead of Texas – An abortion doctor on Trump’s win: ‘I fear for my life. I fear for my patients.’ :

    http://churchandstate.org.uk/2016/11/an-abortion-doctor-on-trumps-win-i-fear-for-my-life-i-fear-for-my-patients/

    Excerpt :

    In fact, one week ago I received a chilling letter from Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), the most ferociously anti-abortion member of Congress, who chairs the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives.

    The letter demanded that I submit a wide variety of documents, including patient medical records in cases of gestations greater than 22 weeks. I have until Nov. 21 to comply.

    The panel is looking for evidence that I am selling “baby body parts.” It has the power of subpoena and can cite me for contempt of Congress if I don’t comply by the deadline.

    It is frightening. It is a witch hunt.

    I am a physician helping patients, and I am being treated like a criminal.

    The star chamber proceedings of the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives is a target identification program for the anti-abortion assassins. It is terrifying. …
    – Warren M. Hern, MD.

    That deadline has now passed & I don’t know what if anything has since happened there – article posted on the 11th November last year.