Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/10/texas-lawmakers-want-death-pen.html
They’re pro-life, you see.
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“From the moment of fertilization.” So, another personhood law. Ectopic pregnancy? Sorry, very treatable, but the government says you gotta die. Miscarriage? Needs to be investigated, if we find that you could have done something different, it’s the long walk for you. IUD’s are murder devices, better not come to TX if you have one of those in. Oral contraceptives? Nope, those are out too. Confiscate them at the border!! Anybody else getting the “Handmaid’s Tale” vibe?
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Once again we see that cognitive dissonance is not a problem if you’re working on behalf of an Invisible Bearded Sky Man™.
The head-desking stupidity aside, this in yet another in an onslaught of proposed laws designed to be challenged all the way up to the SCOTUS, as the anti-choicers try to chip away at or overturn Roe v. Wade.
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I wonder if anyone’s dug up any abortion records that cross-reference with any prominent GOP/conservative Texans? Seems to me, a point could be made.
ETA: As @Rita_Lynn has pointed out, this statement could be construed as outing the people who received an abortion, when I only mean the lawmakers/influencers who both support this bill but have also facilitated an abortion in order to preserve public image or keep an affair quiet.
I am not in favor of doxxing the general public for something like this, and believe the women deserve anonymity.
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I say let them, as long as they understand, agree, and include in said law that any and all politicians passing any law mandating the death penalty for anything is personally responsible for those deaths, and therefore should also receive the death penalty.
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He who sheds man’s blood, by man ― the civil government ― his blood will be shed
and then the man who shed blood because the first man shed blood shall have his blood shed…and then the man who shed blood because the first man shed blood and had to shed the 2nd man’s blood will have his blood shed…until…what, no more men? who will shed the last man’s blood…a woman, perhaps? ah, ha …a loophole. women, are good.
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Another reminder that “pro-life” means “Punish the women for daring to have sex, the harlots!” with zero care for the child once it’s born, the mother at any point, or indeed the well-being of any living human beings.
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Well, except the ones who have sex with Republican lawmakers.
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You inherently can’t be “pro-life” if you support the death penalty; the hypocrisy boggles.
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Isn’t that punishment enough already?
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I think of it more like a Mike Rowe “dirty job”, because it generally comes with compensation. /s
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The truth most people don’t discuss is that miscarriage is incredibly common. Through no fault of the mother or anybody else the baby just isn’t viable. If someone went whole hog on this it would amount to thousands and thousands of murder cases every year. In order to keep the workload manageable they’ll have to focus only on politically unpopular groups like minorities and immigrants.
Texas has roughly 400,000 births each year. Roughly 10-50% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, depending on how you count. That’s 44,000 murder cases for the courts to deal with every year at best, 400,000 at worst.
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Did the Taliban relocate to Texas?
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“You see if they make it against the law, then anybody who then gets one is a criminal, and criminals should suffer penalties, because they broke the law. It’s very simple, I don’t know why you’re on the side of criminals. If they followed the law then they wouldn’t be in trouble.”
-Future idiotic commenter.
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“Hey Taliban, hold my Lone Star beer…”
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Already happening in other parts of the world;
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Even the Old Testament didn’t have the same penalties for terminating a pregnancy as for killing a child brought to term.
And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no [further] injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. —Exodus 21:22-25
Granted, that was still another legal system that classified women as property/baby-making machines who had no right of body autonomy.
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Below is a story about child loss and abortion. Trigger warnings apply.
To preface, My wife and I now have a healthy nine-year-old girl and are doing much better now.
Years ago my wife and I had went through IVF to conceive. We wanted a child more than anything and we were willing to undergo the financial and possible health hardships to have a child. The procedure was successful and my wife became pregnant. He was a boy.
At a little after 20 weeks we went in for a exam. They found no heartbeat or other signs of life. After a sonogram and other visits to verify, it was confirmed our child was dead. But as time went on, the pregnancy would not end.
My wife was prescribed The Pill to try and end the pregnancy. Our pharmacist, not asking why we were prescribed the pill, dressed us down publicly in the middle of the supermarket. It was embarrassing, belittling and completely unwarranted. But even after the pill, the pregnancy did not end.
It was at this point my wife was starting to have multiple health problems. Our doctor decided an abortion was necessary to end the pregnancy. My wife’s life was starting to become at risk. Luckily, they were able to perform the procedure at our local hospital. But the nurses at the hospital treated us like dirt at the mere mention of the procedure. They also never asked why.
It was the hardest, darkest and most terrible time of our lives. And so many people showed us so little compassion. No one ever asked why. They just saw what was happening and that was it. We were sinners and murderers of a child we so wanted and had already lost.
Am I surprised that these politicians would want to charge us with murder after all we’d been through? No. Not after seeing the total lack of empathy and compassion so many people we encountered during that time had given us.
I just hope that they can see some of the circumstances in which abortions occur are well beyond what they are thinking.
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Agreed. I think this is less* about getting the law to stick in TX, and more about activating the machine to get a SCOTUS repeal of Roe v. Wade.
*and by less I mean that they still would gleefully like to have this be the law, just that they are fighting to suppress women’s rights at every level.
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