Texas
passed its omnibus anti-choice legislation one week ago by a vote of 19-11 in
the State Senate. This last Thursday Governor Rick Perry (R) signed
it.
At
the same time
the US House approved a farm bill without funding food stamps by a vote of
216-208. The debate was heated with Democrats accusing Republicans of dismissing
low income Americans while Republicans did what they could do stifle vocal opposition.
These
two polices passed by Republicans at the state level in Texas and the national
level are summed up by Rachel Maddow's quote
in her analysis of President
Obama's re-election speech as she was commenting about what the real political
divisions in this country are.
The biggest political divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans, it's between who care and people who don't.
Republicans
do not care about the rest of their constituents.
They
only care about those that participate in the Republican Primary and those that
fund their campaigns.
My
State Rep, State Senator, US House Member, and US Senators do not care about
me. I didn't vote for them, but I expect that they would hear me out because
they were elected to represent me. Honestly, they don't represent the interests
of me or my friends that fall into the same category as me.
I reached
that conclusion during the Texas Senate's HB 2 debate.
During
the debate, Senate Democrats offered
20 amendments to try to lessen the blow of the proposed legislation and back
to the House for reconsideration. Among those
amendments were restoring funding to the cuts to family planning services and
education that happened in the 82nd session to teaching age appropriate
comprehensive sex education to Senator Wendy Davis's "Equal Pay for Equal
Work" proposal.
All
20 amendments were tabled.
By
the end of that night, the bill passed as expected.
I
made this observation at the start
of these special sessions back on 31 May 2013:
This special session is nothing more than an opportunity for the very vocal minority of Tea Party Republicans to push forward their agenda and to prevent some legislators from seeing a formidable primary challenger in 2014. State level Republicans know they are going to get hammered on issues such as the budget and not pushing enough of an extreme agenda by their base.
I later
expanded on that observation in the days after Senator Davis's filibuster
at the end of the first special session.
One
of the reasons for passing this anti-choice omnibus bill was the argument
coming from Republicans saying that fetuses feel pain at 20 weeks. I asked this
question via twitter:
The #TXGOP's argument is preventing pain for 20 wk fetus. What about the pain of a live child going hungry? #TXLege #SB1 #HB2 #SWTW
— Michael Watts (@mjwatts1983) July 12, 2013
I
had a few responses to this tweet. They were from your stereotypical right-wing
Tea Partier types. What did I do?
Blocked
them.
The
fetal pain theory is bunk
(among OTHER
anti-choice theories that are circulating the so called "pro-life"
movement and Republican politics). A British
study says that
fetuses cannot feel pain until 24 weeks while an American study says it is
much later at 28
weeks. The reason for these findings is that fetuses' have not developed
the nervous system to feel pain.
Also,
a
2005 study by the Centers For Disease Control published that less than 1.3%
of all abortions occur after 21 weeks.
Or
in other words, science.
Another
issue that Texas Republicans are claiming is that they want to make health care
for women safer.
So
how safe are abortions in Texas? 22% of abortions in Texas
were preformed in facilities classified as ambulatory surgical centers while
the rest were preformed in clinics that don't meet HB 2's standards. According
to the health department, the type of clinic has no impact on safety where the
abortion is preformed.
HB
2 was not based on sound science or making health care for women safer. Instead
it will punish poor women and women of color as they seek unsafe alternative
methods to terminate a pregnancy such as purchasing abortion inducing drugs
on the Black Market or worse... going
to medical providers who will butcher a woman.
I
know I have said it once in prior entries, but it is worth repeating.
HB
2's passage was nothing more than political gamesmanship to satisfy the rabid
Tea Party base going into the 2014 elections. Texas Republicans pushed their
luck and they have lost. There is a sense of anger among people on my side of
the aisle and we have had enough. This could be the beginning of the end of the
Republican Party's almost 20-year hold on Texas politics.
Back
to my question that I tweeted asking about how can Texas Republicans care about
fetus pain but not about the hunger pains of a child.
The
Republican Party claims to be the party of "pro-life." There is a
catch... they only care about you if you are a fetus. After you are born, you
are on your own.
As
shown with the farm bill, House Republicans passed
a bill that gave subsidies to farmers and big agriculture businesses but no
funding to food stamps. It is not just food stamps. Here in Texas, our
legislature cut education funding. There is the issue of fracking which raises
concerns about the quantity and quality of our water supply. And of course,
for the 38th and 39th time, the
House GOP voted to repeal ObamaCare. Meanwhile 1
out of 4 Texans are without healthcare coverage. Then there is the issue of
that Republicans are refusing to taking on gun reform legislation because the
NRA has them by their collective testicles threatens to run NRA backed
candidates against them.
Oh
and Lege Republicans have filed this
bill, The
Fetal Heartbeat Bill, that would criminalize an abortion where a heartbeat
is detected. The bill is
classified as "trigger" legislation meaning it will only take
effect if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade (1973).
The
bill was filed within minutes of Governor Perry signing HB 2.
So...
back to the title of this entry.
My
fellow Democrats/Liberal minded people can present Republicans with the facts
and we can write letters, tweet them, call them, and show up physically to
their offices in their district and the capitol building.
We can hold marches
and yell and scream at them to vote for a position that we advocate, but as
shown with the votes in The Lege and the US House, those actions did not sway
their opinion.
You
would think that when a crowd of this size....
from
WITHIN
TEXAS shows up to the Pink Dome in Austin, that Republicans in The Lege
would stop and think about what they are doing.
But
as shown with their votes, we don't matter to them.
When
Republican politicians return to their districts the moment the Special Session
adjourns sine die, they will brag about
how they passed this anti-choice bill. The only thing these politicians will be
proud about is they have something to shelter themselves going into the 2014
Republican Primaries which will be brutal for them. Other than that, this
legislation does nothing to curb Texas's exploding teen birth rate. The Lege
did nothing to ensure that future generations of Texans have access to health
care with their constant moaning about how ObamaCare is an unfunded mandate
(and HB 2 isn't?). And most telling is they didn't fully restore the education
cuts that took place during the 82nd session and were unwilling to listen to
Democrats proposals to make Texas a better state.
The
sad part is they refused to listen to the voices of the victims of sexual assault
who were traumatized by their experiences. Or the women who experienced a wide
range of complications during their pregnancies that not only endangered the
well-being and formation of the fetus but also jeopardized future pregnancies and in some instances
endangered the health of the mother.
Because of their unwillingness to listen to the
marginalized and only listening to the most extreme voices in their party,
Republicans will pay a heavy price at the election booth come November 2014.
Eventually,
we will stand up to these bullies.
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