Tag Archives: abortion

Now That the Anti-Abortion Bills Passed in Texas, the Pro-Life Crowd is Terrified of Facing the Consequences

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Erick Erickson makes a living trying to rile up progressives and liberals for the entertainment of the more terrible elements of the right wing. It is difficult to know how much he believes the things he says, and how much he is playing to his audience. Put another way, is he really such a horrible person, or does he just play one on TV? The only thing I know for sure that he is very good at the job I just described. In the early hours of Saturday, July 13, 2013, he tweeted the following:

erick

The above image is from an article on Daily Kos. As of this writing, at 12:45 p.m. on Sunday, July 14, the tweet no longer appears in Erickson’s Twitter timeline, which leads me to suspect that he could not handle the heat he received. This should not be a surprise.

He did leave up some other gems, however: Continue reading →

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The Texas House Makes HB2 Seem More Popular Than It Is by Changing the Page Layout

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Via Stand With Texas Women/Facebook

Via Stand With Texas Women/Facebook

The Texas House of Representatives’ House Research Organization (HRO) releases a “Daily Floor Report” summarizing the bills and testimony presented before the House or its committees. The House has been in recess since the second special session started, although the State Affairs Committee held a hearing on the resurrected anti-abortion bill, HB2, last Tuesday, July 2. The Daily Floor Report for July 9, 2013 (PDF file) has a summary of that hearing, and it demonstrates a sneaky way of making it appear, at least superficially, that your bill has more support than it actually does (h/t Arthur).

Beginning on page 1 (the first page after the cover sheet), the report lists witnesses testifying “for” the bill, “against” the bill, and “on” the bill. It lists three pages of witnesses supporting the bill and one page of witnesses opposing it. The report also identifies one person who testified “on” the bill, Ellen Cooper of the Department of State Health Services.

Based on that, you might think that far more people testified in support of HB2 than in opposition to it, right? You might be excused, at first glance, for thinking that three times as many people testified for it as against it.

You would be wrong about that.

At the end of the three-page-long list of HB2 supporters, the report states that “about 1,090 others” signed up to testify in support of the bill. Most of them did not get to deliver their testimony to the committee in person, of course, since the hearing might still be going on a week later if they had. Still, three pages of names plus 1,090 more is quite a lot of people.

How many more signed up to testify in addition to the one page of names testifying against HB2? At the end of that much-shorter list, the report states that “about 2,060 others” signed up to testify against HB2.

According to the Texas Tribune, a roughly equal number of people testified for and against the bill. I suspect the HRO is not accustomed to writing such lengthy lists of witnesses, but that still does not explain the different page lengths. The scale of the testimony on Sunday, June 23 does not even come close to last Tuesday, and the Daily Floor Report (PDF file) for that day clearly indicates that more people signed up to testify against that bill than for it.

Wherever you stand on the issue of abortion, this sort of game-playing should not be acceptable.

Maybe Daily Floor Reports are subject to a page number limit. That is about the only honest reason I can think of at the moment for why the report is set up this way, but even that would not explain why the HRO cut off the list of opponents when it could have shortened the list of supporters.

The chair of the steering committee for the House Research Organization is Rep. Bill Callegari (R-Houston). I sent Rep. Callegari the following request for information through his Facebook page:

Dear Rep. Callegari,

I am a resident of Austin, Texas, and I have been researching and writing about the events surrounding HB2, SB9, and the related bills pending in the Legislature. I am not affiliated with any news or media organization. I have a question regarding the Daily Floor Report released today, July 9.

The report summarizes the State Affairs Committee hearing on HB2 that took place last week, and includes lists of people who registered to testify for and against the bill. According to news reports, only about 100 people were able to give live testimony to the committee, with about an equal number of people testifying in support of and in opposition to the bill. Today’s Daily Floor Report lists three pages’ worth of supporters’ names, then adds that about 1,090 more people signed up to testify in support of HB2. It then lists one page of opponents’ names, and adds that about 2,060 more people signed up to testify against the bill.

My question is as follows: why did the report list so many more names of supporters than opponents, when more people signed up to testify against the bill than for it, and roughly equal numbers of people actually testified to the committee on either side of the issue? Your attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.

I’ll update if I hear anything back.

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Dear Rep. Laubenberg

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Via Dallas County Democratic Party on Facebook

Via Dallas County Democratic Party on Facebook

The following is reposted with permission from a Facebook post by my friend Andreas, in relation to the HB2 hearings on Tuesday, July 2, 2013 in Austin, Texas:

Dear Rep. Laubenberg,

The truth shouldn’t ever have to fear inquiry. If this was a bill that would actually help increase women’s health and safety you would not have to avoid answering tough questions about its effect on women. You would not have to endure scathing rebuttals from actual health organizations and medical professionals. You would not have to ram this legislature through with a special session. If this was a bill that would help Texas women, you would have garnered broad support for it.

But as we have seen in the last couple of weeks, this is not about women’s health. This is about your personal religious view on women, sex and when life starts. This is about limiting access to abortions and making them so dangerous, expensive or logistically difficult, that you are basically outlawing them.

I might by cynical when it comes to the motivations and loyalties of politicians, and I might be disenchanted by the mockery of the democratic process – but I am not stupid. Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending that you have the health and safety of women on your mind.

You know what would convince me that you actually care about women’s health and safety and that you want to lower the number of abortions?

If you would fund the abortion providers so they can meet the medical requirements that you say are so important.
If you would champion age-appropriate and comprehensive sex education.
If you would fight to make contraceptives easily available and affordable.
If you would listen to what medical professionals have to say about this topic.

But as it stands all you do is using questionable tactics to get around a law that you don’t agree with. Since you can’t attack Roe vs. Wade directly you try to cancel it out by these shamefully disingenuous tactics. The truth shouldn’t ever have to fear inquiry, but there isn’t much truth here, is there?

With the same respect that you show towards women,
AF

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10 Things Old White Republicans Can Do Instead of Trying to Pass Anti-Choice Legislation

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Old white Republicans seem to have quite a bit of time on their hands, and they seem to think passing anti-choice legislation is a good way to pass the time. I thought I’d offer some tips on things they could do instead. (h/t to Jen for the idea.)

1. Shuffleboard.

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2. Contra. Not the Nicaraguan guerrilla group—I’m talking about the 1980’s Nintendo classic. (Psst! There’s a secret code that can get you nearly unlimited lives. If you promise to stop trying to pass all this restrictive legislation, I’ll tell you what the code is.)

© 1988 Konami

© 1988 Konami

3. Duck hunting. This can be accomplished with the Nintendo or in real life.

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4. Ensuring the people have access to affordable contraception.

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5. Arm wrestling. 

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6. Fly fishing.

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7. Building a ship in a bottle.

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8. Southern-style cooking (I hear there’s a vacancy in the Southern-style cooking TV show market coming up.)

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9. Guaranteeing adequate and effective sex education.

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10. Retiring.

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Here are a few things you should not do instead of trying to pass restrictive anti-choice legislation:

1. Constitutional amendments that involve marriage.

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2. Starting your own pornography company.

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3. Drone strikes.

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Photo credits: jimb from morguefile.com; ‘Contra’ © 1988 Konami, via Wikipedia; nasirkhan from morguefile.com; jppi from morguefile.com; Bombadil77 [GFDL, CC BY-SA 3.0, CC BY 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons; seriousfun from morguefile.com; Remi Jouan (Photo taken by Remi Jouan) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons; LifeisGood from morguefile.com; Katherin Parker Bryden (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons; Seemann from morguefile.com; sullivan from morguefile.com; Mkey (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons; US Air Force (http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2421.htm) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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The “Unruly Mob” Smears Continue, but Help Comes from Unexpected Places

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The North Texas Tea Party is at it again, insisting that the bulk of the opposition to SB5’s reincarnations, HB2 and SB9, comes from out-of-state people and local Austinites motivated primarily by free food.

There is a core of about 1500-2000 of Austin residents college, homeless, and others) that could just about qualify as semi-professional protestors. We’ve seen the same ones at education rallies, pro-abortion rallies, gay rights rallies, etc. They consider it fun and worthwhile WHEN the free food is involved. But try asking them who their state rep or state Senator is.

(Dawnna Dukes and Kirk Watson. I did not have to look that up. But I digress.)

And now, our folks have found Craiglist entries offering to PAY people to show up, as has happened before; a standard MoveOn tactic.  Add to that a NATIONALLY orchestrated effort for buses from all over (some possibly out of state) by the well-oiled community organizor types.

I was there yesterday. If there was free food, no one offered it to me. I was cheering and wearing orange, and yet I had to buy my own lunch. It’s almost like I wanted to be there because I believe in the cause. Hmmmm….

I’m wondering if anyone has photographs of these buses “possibly” coming from out of state. It would take many, many buses to get so many people to the Capitol. Anyone?

Then there’s the thing about the Craigslist ad. The NTTP blog does not provide a link or any other evidence of these ads, so I asked the author if he had links or screenshots. A quick Google search, however, turned up two pages addressing it.

Townhall.com has a brief (i.e. five sentence) piece by Katie Pavlich linking to a Craigslist ad (since deleted, as Craigslist ads usually are) and including the following picture (titled “ScreenShot2013-07-01at103755AM_zpsd0f53d76”):

Via townhall.com

Via townhall.com

That sounds very….general. At the very least, the fact that an organization is trying to hire activists in a town with more than 50,000 university students should not be surprising to anyone. To link this ad directly to the current protest effort at the state Capitol takes a bit of imagination.

A rather thorough debunking of the Craigslist claim came from Breitbart.com, of all places. John Sexton contacted the group that posted the ad and wrote the following:

I called Grassroots Campaigns and spoke to an individual there familiar with the ad. He explained it is part of an ongoing campaign being run on behalf of Planned Parenthood. PP has been hiring grassroots fundraisers since last summer. The Craigslist ad is part of that fundraising campaign, not an attempt to hire protest organizers.

There is another link on the ad itself which leads to this page offering full time “Assistant Canvas Director” jobs. The job description reads in part “Canvass in the field for four days per week, to train new and experienced staff in the field and meet personal fundraising requirements.” So it’s definitely a fundraising job.

Planned Parenthood is working with Grassroots Campaigns to hire fundraisers in Austin and also, it appears, in other locations around the country. These job listings are not part of the recent attempts to block SB5 though it’s probably not a stretch to imagine some of the folks will be participating in the protests.

From looking at his Twitter feed, I feel confident in saying that Mr. Sexton and I disagree on many things. That said, I am immensely grateful for his work to debunk this claim. The only way any progress is possible in the long-term is if the two (or more) sides can argue the actual issues, not slander one another. I try to refute misinformation on my side when I see it—and it does happen. I couldn’t leave a comment on the Breitbart story, so I tweeted my gratitude to Mr. Sexton.


He replied:


I truly believe we should applaud good journalism everywhere we see it. I am not talking to you, North Texas Tea Party.

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That Time a 20-Week Abortion Ban Was Found Unconstitutional – Isaacson v. Horne

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800px-Entering_Arizona_on_I-10_WestboundArizona passed House Bill 2036 (PDF file), a law banning abortions after 20 weeks, in 2012. After a federal district court declined to issue a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the law in Isaacson v. Horne (“Isaacson 1“), 884 F.Supp.2d 961 (D. Ariz. 2012), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed earlier this year, finding the law unconstitutional. Isaacson v. Horne (“Isaacson 2“), No. 12-16670, slip op. (9th Cir., May 21, 2013). I mention this now because Texas is trying something similar.

I. HOUSE BILL 2036

Section 7 of Arizona’s HB2036 added two sections to title 36, chapter 20, article 1 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, which covers general provisions for abortion. Section 36-2158 required doctors to give various information to women seeking abortions, with different sets of information depending on whether the fetus had been diagnosed with a “lethal fetal condition” or not. The information had to be provided at least 24 hours before performing an abortion. Section 36-2159 prohibited abortions if the “probable gestational age of the unborn child,” as determined by the physician, is twenty weeks or more. Violating this restriction could subject a doctor to loss of license and criminal liability.

Section 9 of HB2036 listed findings that, according to the Legislature, supported section 7 and the rest of the bill. These included supposed complications that become more likely in late-term abortions, the state’s interest in “protecting the health of women,” and fetal pain.

II. ISAACSON 1 – U.S. DISTRICT COURT, DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

The plaintiffs in Isaacson were three medical doctors who filed suit against the state attorney general, officials for Maricopa and Pima Counties, and the Arizona Medical Board and its director. The filed suit on July 12, 2012, seeking a preliminary injunction to bar enforcement of section 7 of the law, which was to take effect on August 2. They specifically objected to the 20-week ban. Continue reading →

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You Live Here with Us

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Photo by Kathy O'Cain via Facebook

Photo by Kathy O’Cain via Facebook

None of you understand. I’m not locked up in here with you. You’re locked up in here with me.
-Rorschach, Watchmen by Alan Moore

An interesting feature of the past week’s events in Texas is the seemingly genuine surprise, not only among Republican leaders, but rank-and-file “pro-life” supporters as well, that so many people care so deeply about this issue and will stand and oppose bills like SB5 and its zombie equivalents, HB2 and SB9.

After ten years of dominating all statewide elected offices and both chambers of the Legislature, I suspect that Republicans, and conservatives in general, began to think of it as their state, and that we progressives were stuck here with them. If you’ll pardon the Watchmen reference above, maybe it’s time for them to realize that Texas is our state, too, and it is time for conservatives to realize that they have to live in it with us.

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A Searing Look at the “Pro-Life” Movement from a Former Insider

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Although I have been pro-choice for as long as I have known that this was an issue in dispute, I have always felt a certain sympathy for people who genuinely believe that “life begins at [whenever],” but my sympathy stops when they start trying to impose their views on others. Some people do not mince words, saying that because a fetus is a full human being, the rights of the mother cease to matter. Others simply claim to care deeply for the rights of the fetus, and to want to help the fetus survive. The problem is that nearly every other policy favored by the “pro-life” makes it as difficult as possible for the fetus to thrive once it becomes a baby (which, for the purposes of my argument, occurs at birth. Respect my opinions, dammit!) This is why many people, myself included, think the movement should be called “pro-birth,” rather than “pro-life,” because that is where their willingness to help ends.

Libby Anne, who blogs at Love,Joy, Feminism, has an excellent piece from last October about her shift from a vehement “pro-life” stance (scare quotes intentional) to being pro-choice. The whole thing deserves your attention, as she examines not only opposition to abortion among “pro-life” advocates, but also opposition to making birth control available, or even opposition to birth control at all. Contraception is generally agreed to be the best way to reduce the number of abortions, which I agree is a noble goal. By not encouraging contraceptive use, the “pro-life” movement does nothing to decrease the number of abortions, and reveals that for many, the true goal is controlling women’s sexuality.

[T]hose in the pro-life movement, or at least the leaders of the pro-life movement, are incredibly inconsistent. You simply can’t be against the pill for fear that it will result in flushed out zygotes and yet not concerned at all about the vastly greater number of zygotes flushed out naturally every day. At least, not if you really truly believe a zygote has the same worth as an infant, toddler, or adult, and not if you’re truly motivated solely by a desire to save the lives of these “unborn babies.” Fresh off of these thoughts, I came upon two news articles on the subject in the last week that have completely shattered the last bit of faith I had in the pro-life movement.

She then talks about how Obama, through health care reform, has reduced the number of abortions far more than a ban on abortion ever would. She concludes as follows:

The reality is that so-called pro-life movement is not about saving babies. It’s about regulating sex. That’s why they oppose birth control. That’s why they want to ban abortion even though doing so will simply drive women to have dangerous back alley abortions. That’s why they want to penalize women who take public assistance and then dare to have sex, leaving an exemption for those who become pregnant from rape. It’s not about babies. If it were about babies, they would be making access to birth control widespread and free and creating a comprehensive social safety net so that no woman finds herself with a pregnancy she can’t afford. They would be raising money for research on why half of all zygotes fail to implant and working to prevent miscarriages. It’s not about babies. It’s about controlling women. It’s about making sure they have consequences for having unapproved sex.

But I am very sure that there are other dupes out there. If you’re sitting there reading this thinking “but I really am in it to save unborn babies,” I am sure you’re not alone. After all, I was one of you.

If you are one who has been a part of the pro-life movement because you really do believe in “saving unborn babies,” it’s time to cut your ties with the movement. You may be an honest and kind-hearted person, but you’ve been had. You’ve been taken in. It’s time to let go. It’s time to support Obamacare’s birth control mandate, it’s time to call off opposition to birth control, and it’s time to get behind progressive programs that help provide for poor women and their children. It’s time to make your actions consistent with your motives. While I am myself no longer morally opposed to abortion, I and others like me share your desire to decrease the number of unplanned pregnancies and to ensure that every woman can afford the option of keeping her pregnancy.

We’d love to have you join us.

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How Have Texas Republicans Been Abusing Their Power Lately?

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When liberal fascists form a mob, they do so in an orderly, color-coordinated fashion. (© @OFA_UT/Twitter)

When liberal fascists form a mob, they do so in an orderly, color-coordinated fashion. (© @OFA_UT/Twitter)

We’ve all heard about how an “unruly mob” disrupted the Texas Senate last week, and how all the beleaguered rich white dudes were scared. We’ve also heard how someone allegedly doctored the voting records to make it look like the vote on SB5 took place before midnight on June 25, when in fact it occurred after midnight on June 26 (and therefore after the expiration of the Legislature’s special session.)

One of these is a group of citizens making noise for about ten minutes inside a public building to express discontent with some pretty shady legislative practices. The other is felony falsification of public documents. Which one do you think state Republican leaders are choosing to make an issue? Continue reading →

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Update on the Anti-Abortion Bills Coming Up in Texas’ Second Special Session (Courtesy of Karen)

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1045115_10103126386872565_1531030081_nThe following was written by my new friend Karen, and should replace the information I posted last week. I am editing that post so that it directs readers here. After this sentence, everything else is Karen’s words.

I’ve been waiting for the text of HB2 to come available to amend this fully, but it continues to be unavailable (probably intentional). In any event, I’ve added links to the new bills, and made SOME amendments based on information we have received regarding SB9. IMPORTANT TO READ THE PART ABOUT SB9 (see section c.) because it has significant changes from the previous bill and makes previous arguments no longer valid. If you can get the word out about the changes (as much as possible, I know the ship has sailed to a certain extent), it would be GREAT.

When you go to this protest on Monday, PLEASE be informed and know the facts. Some of the media will attempt to make you look as stupid as possible, as if women are hysterical, emotional and totally unreasonable. As emotional an issue as this is for many of us, people are more apt to listen and take you seriously if you remain calm and logical in your arguments.

READ THE ACTUAL BILLS (if you haven’t already) http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/831/billtext/html/SB00005H.htm
NOTE: this is the OLD bill. There is now SB9 and HB2.
The text of SB9 is available http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=832&Bill=SB9
The text of HB2 has not been made available yet http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=832&Bill=HB2

Beat the supporters of these bills at their own game and have your arguments ready as to why this bill is damaging to women. Continue reading →

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