Or taking in more Federal money than they contribute in taxes. etc. etc. Texas’ free market, rebel narrative is a joke.
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They’ll bide their time with “Voter ID” until they can think of some other way to subvert the will of the majority.
Hmmm. That list of “suspected” materials, contained in jars, sounds awfully similar to law enforcement justifications for preemptive raids and detentions leading up to the 2008 RNC in Saint Paul, MN. Must be some kind of standard boilerbullshit.
What? No, of course we can’t show you the jars! They are locked away pending careful assessment as to whether they actually contain urine, paint and/or feces. Because we can’t somehow just determine that with our five senses. They will be made available once the crisis has passed, and you’ve forgotten that they existed or that we ever mentioned them.
It’s so frustrating to see these sorts of draconian laws forced on the public. But Texas put up a damn good fight, galvanized a new generation of sensible people, and even got a political star out of the mess. Here’s hoping that momentum pays off. My guess is that the general national overreach will end badly for these Tea Party/Right clowns, long run…
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Sad sad shit. As a Canadian, the only solace I guess I can give is that the US is 50 tiny states. Canada is 10(+territories) which are FUCKHUGE. if laws like these were past, it be alot harder to go to the next province.
Don’t give up on your state, obviously, never give up, fight the good fight, but atleast I’m sure a state or two in some direction will let you get what you need done, done. of course at a significant cost (time, money) but ya gota do wacha gota do.
This fight has to be taken to the national level. If the nation can ignore state laws & bust down grow ops in cali, getting shit legalized nationwide would be a fuck you to the state laws no ?
sorry I’m really ignorant on how this works, call me a dreamer I guess.
Just get that shit done somehow. If not in texas, create programs to send teens-whoemever across state lines at a lesser cost to them/lesser risk. Female Health Bus trips once a month to lower costs or something, when it comes to grassroutes theres always a way to make things better.
hope I havent been too cynical or instulted anyone. More Power to all of you & godspeed.
Look on the bright side; the progressive bloc will fight back, and win, and in doing so will help to provide a model for future battles. 
The anti-choice movement likes to frame abortion like it’s a just another form of birth control, and so if you can’t make up your mind before 20 weeks, well then you should get stuck with it. (Funny how they say they’re against unwanted pregnancies, but then are against abortion, contraceptives, and sex ed, and thus promote policies to increase the number of unwanted pregnancies.) So who waits 20 weeks or more? Simple, couples that just found out that their fetus has major birth defects. My wife and I recently had a child, and I was shocked to find out that we had to wait so long to find out whether or not our child had arms or a brain. Everything was fine, but it was very stressful until we got the diagnostic ultrasounds. Until about 20 weeks all OBs can check for are heartbeats and growth, which isn’t very informative at all.
What would have happened if we found our child was going to have major birth defects? We would have aborted it, without an ounce of guilt. Just the regret that we would have lost a second pregnancy.
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Out of curiosity, I compared land area of TX to Canada’s provinces … TX is bigger than than all but three of Canada’s provinces (Quebec, British Columbia, and Ontario), but its population is still bigger than those three provinces combined.
Also, these sorts of laws are being passed in multiple states: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rachel-maddow-show/52446472
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Perry comes to California to lure businesses to move to Texas. After this, I think he’ll have a much harder time convincing companies who value the free and open healthcare that’s available in California and other states. Companies may lose to many valuable people if they moved to Texas. I’m surpised Apple hasn’t had a little word with Perry already. They have an extensive presence in Texas and I’m sure twisting Perry’s nipples on this would be such fun.
I’ve never heard that saying “faster than shit through a goose…” Outstanding!
In there mind, the problem is government interference. They embrace the notion that social problems can only be eliminated on the local level, most likely with the help of private groups. Society, in their mind, is not social, but is a collection of individuals only, hence working out problems via the state is inherently oppressive, as it oppresses the individual. There is no social… except when it comes to controlling “problematic” groups that deviate from the norms of a god ordered society (whatever the hell that means, I can’t guess, since every religious person I know sees god differently) need to be controlled and direct into their proper place. For women, that means state, or rather male, control of her reproductive capacity, for people of color, that means controlling their “criminal impulses”, which they believe only stems from their individual capacity for criminality… The worst thing you can do and try and control privately held property, especially if that property is held by white, protestant men.
To be fair that’s just a guess on how they are justifying things like ignoring unsafe working conditions, the rights of women to control their bodies and the rights of human beings to a fair and impartial justice system.
If the anti-choicers actually gave a damn about life, they wouldn’t be trying to defund programs that help feed, clothe and give medical care to these children they want to force women to have. Their actions tell me it’s not about life at all. It’s about control.
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It’s a nice thought, but my experience has been that most big companies don’t give a shit about their employees, not even the valuable ones.
Yes, control. Control of office, which they get by garnering the most votes, which they get by appealing to lowest common denominators.
Apple has a research campus in Austin. If enough people left or when to another company (e.g. Google), I think they’d take notice.
Many years ago, a California database company (ASK who owned Ingres) was sold to Computer Associates in Boston. They were told at the transition meeting that announced the sale that the California offices would be closed and that 100% relocation would be paid to all engineering staff. When pressed about the domestic partners benefits and other features of the health plan, CompAss said that their policy would be used to cover the relocated employees (i.e. no coverage). 250 database engineers stood and left the meeting. They packed their desks and left the building. All had jobs at Oracle or Sybase by the next day. I think 5 people took the relocation deal. Ingres became Postgres, which is now open source.
During the entire “give benefits to gay employees and their partners” thing, Microsoft, Apple, and Google came out saying they were going to do this. Because it was good for business. 1M Moms organized a boycott of these companies that went nowhere.
I think if someone at Apple, Google, and Microsoft sat down with Perry and told him to fix this and he didn’t, things would get really ugly in the Texas business community. All they’d have left was oil as an industry. Big companies do give a shit. I worked for DEC back in the 80s during the AIDS epidemic. They were one of the first to write HR policies for employees and their partners dealing with HIV.
Sorry. I don’t see how this is considered Draconian. It seems (somewhat) reasonable to me. The laws were amended based on new scientific information, in which it was claimed that fetuses can feel pain within about 20 weeks of gestation. So, abortions were not abolished. The time in which you can do them was simply reduced.
Again it’s not Draconian. That is a huge exaggeration… The eponymous Draco passed down laws that would force people into slavery arbitrarily. As far as I can tell this is nowhere near that level.
However, however, however – ! I do think that abortions should be extended for those who find out that their babies will have severe birth defects (like mental retardation). Or there is a great risk of death to the mother. I’ve always believed that there can and should be exceptions under strenuous cirucmstances.
Dra·co·ni·an
[drey-koh-nee-uhn, druh-]
adjective
- of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Draco or his code of laws.
- ( often lowercase ) rigorous; unusually severe or cruel: Draconian forms of punishment.
As a Texan I’ve been following this one closely and I don’t understand a few things such as;
Why is it a bad thing to require businesses that sell abortions as a for profit business to adhere to the same safety standards as an outpatient clinic? The standards are quite low and reasonable. I think women deserve a clean and safe environment.
As the procedure involves significant risk to the patient, why is it unreasonable to expect the doctor to have admitting rights at a local hospital? If the patient begins to hemorrhage, shouldn’t the doctor be able to rush his patient through admitting without having to wait on the ER to make that decision? I’ve worked in hospitals where getting doctors with admit privileges to sigh up was a major focus. Doctors who can’t get admit privileges at a local hospital may not be the best for the job.
The 20 weeks thing seems a bit short but not unreasonable. 20 weeks is a late term abortion. There are states with even more restrictive timelines but there doesn’t seem to be the same blowback.
It seems to me that this was politicised by everyone. The Republicans looking for voter brownie points and the Democrats doing the same. It’s a real shame. I really feel like women deserve a safe environment. I also feel like they deserve a doctor who can care for them in the worst case scenario. Yet this has been made in to a political football so the emotions are quite high and reason has been tossed out the window.
In another world, I can imagine women demanding clean clinics and vetted doctors from any business wanting to make money performing abortions.
No no we can;t have those services because then those evil whores would keep having sex.
The real solution is for women to stop dressing up asking for sex, and to save themselves for marriage.
How can any god fearing man be expected to keep it in his pants when they wander past in them daisy dukes, it is on the woman to make sure they the pregnancy doesn’t take, her body has ways to shut it down afterall.
These idiots elevate themselves by keeping others down, it lets them feel better about themselves while they turn a blind eye to all of the problems their actions cause. Look at all of the politicians and wonder how has a race we’ve managed to survive when everything boils down to we can’t do that, it might let someone move up the ladder.
Forcing women to put their bodies to work physically supporting unwanted fetuses against their will IS a form of slavery.
Perhaps the next step should be for ALL Texas doctors to have de-facto admitting privileges to ALL local hospitals. It may be time to draft such legislation to fix this oversight post haste. I would also include the provision that if hospitals don’t recognize admitting privileges for a Texas board certified physician, that their operating permits for their ER facilities are immediately suspended pending oversight review.
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