I’m very happy about the Supreme Court ruling throwing out the Texas law that had already closed half the abortion clinics in the state and would have closed half of the remaining clinics if it had fully gone into effect, leaving just ten clinics for the entire state.
What really pisses me off about the whole thing is that proponents of the law just keep claiming that it was only trying to protect the health of women. The law would have required clinics to have the same surgical facilities as full hospitals, even though they are only performing outpatient surgery. The other part of the law required that clinic doctors have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles, which ironically is difficult to get because doctors who perform abortions don’t send enough patients to hospitals.
Even after the ruling, which found that the claim to protect women’s health was merely cover for making abortions harder to obtain, the governor of Texas announced “The decision erodes states’ lawmaking authority to safeguard the health and safety of women” and that the goal of Texas is to ensure “the highest health and safety standards for women”.
Except that making it much harder for women to get an abortion means they will have to have a baby, something that is far more dangerous to the health of a woman than getting an abortion. Or I guess the woman could find someone to give her an illegal abortion, which is even more dangerous.
Besides, when did Republicans start putting even small amounts of health and safety above constitutionally-protected rights? Can you imagine the outcry over a law that closed three-quarters of the gun shops in Texas, and made private gun sales illegal? And that would do far more to protect health and safety.
I mean, why would Texas need more than ten gun shops?
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I think it’s time for a Texit, y’all.
Texas Exit, Trump Exit, or both? Hey, if Texas leaves, then they could elect Trump as their president!
I wouldn’t mind Texas leaving but I read recently that both CA and NH have given it thought as well. So Texas has to stay. What a shame.
The NH “free stater” movement or whatever is a Libertarian astro-turf job. The whole idea was to move crazies into a low-population state to be able to effect lunatic change like trying to leave the US. Check this out:
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/dvppp6/the-colbert-report-difference-makers—the-free-keene-squad
As far as I can remember, most Granite Staters are more than happy staying put!
The hypocrisy of the Texas law was clearly exposed when it was revealed that other clinics in the state that don’t perform abortions were exempt from its requirements, despite some procedures being performed there that had higher rates of complications and subsequent hospitalizations.
I understand one SCOTUS judge was overheard saying to another as they left the courthouse, “I gotta admit, it was a bonus messing with Texas!”. đŸ˜‰
Politifact has a good article on “bearing false witness” which is what the politicians in Texas are doing.
Politifact compared the two people running for President. The male one rarely says anything that isn’t “bearing false witness” In other words, what words come out of his mouth are lies.
Eva, do you have a link to that article? I can’t find it.