Wendy Davis!
For those who may not know, Wendy Davis is a state senator from the state of Texas who has achieved national fame and notoriety for her eleven hour stand against the restrictive anti abortion bill that governor Rick Perry is trying to ram through the Texas legislature and into law. Ms. Davis stood on the Texas senate floor for eleven hours and carried out a filibuster that temporarily prevented the bill from being passed into law.
The legislation that we are talking about would restrict abortions after twenty weeks, effectively eliminating them. In addition, it would close down most of the abortion clinics in the state because they would not meet the law’s criteria that they be within thirty miles of an approved hospital. In addition to that, all abortion doctors would have to have an active practice within an approved hospital in order to be able to carry out an abortion in the state.
We have been to Texas several times, and, it is often easier to leave the country than to depart the United States second largest state, geographically.
Despite what one might think, Texas is a very diverse state in terms of population. There is a very sizable Latino population inside the state and not all of them have come across the Mexican border to get there. Before Texas was a nation, and then a state, Latinos were the predominant population there. It was a white migration to the area both before and after Texas fight for independence that has led to the white majority inside of the state. But it is a tenuous majority and there are those who will tell you that Texas may become a swing state in national politics in the next two to three presidential election cycles. That is why Texas governor Rick Perry and the legislature were so delighted when the United States Supreme Court struck down the voting rights act this week. The legislature had previously enacted a very restrictive voting rights bill that, among other things, would attempt to gerrymander this same Wendy Davis out of her senate seat at the next election. The voting rights act had prevented that from occurring but now because that roadblock is out of the way, Texas can proceed in any way that it chooses unhindered by the federal government.
Since senator Davis’s filibuster, governor Perry has gone out of his way to make an example out of her by bringing up her past life as a supposed product of a single parent household whom herself had a teenage pregnancy. Governor Perry, in a public speech, stated that Ms Davis had overcome these obstacles to go on to receive a degree from Harvard University and to be elected to the Texas state senate. Perry made these observations in an attempt to use Ms. Davis as an example of someone who could have easily been aborted but was not and has subsequently succeeded in life. Much of the media has been critical of Perry for making an issue of this but it probably has some legitimacy among the conservative community in this nation. The conservatives across America to a great extent feel that every fetus should be given a chance at life, irregardless of whether there is any real chance that they might be a contributing member of society. One of the great examples that they like to use is Sarah Palin’s decision to birth her birth defected child Trey, a person who will require complete care for his entire life, regardless of how long Sarah Palin might live. It reminds us of the frequently heard admonition from the right not to spend other people’s (tax) money when that is exactly what they are so often doing in situations like these
At a deeper level, the debate about abortion, or woman’s choice, revolves around what the neoconservative and religious right is willing to provide for these children if they are going to prevent the woman from making an informed decision affecting both the child’s existence and her own and her loved ones future lives. So many of these children end up on the public welfare and medical lists and cost hard pressed states untold hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars across their lifetimes to care for them simply because a proper decision was taken from the hands of the mother. The argument is made by the right and religious groups that God created these children and that to abort them is akin to murder. But, these same groups who state that premise are trying their very best to eliminate the needed benefits to care for these children that they so want to keep on this earth. In the twenty fifth book of Matthew it states that we are to care for the poor and afflicted if we want to be included with the heavenly hosts, but the right simply ignores that fact completely and also ignores the fact that where there is a right, there is also an obligation--often a lifetime one for care.
It would seem that the right and many religious groups want there to be as much suffering on this earth as they can possibly legislate and promote. And they totally overlook the fact that there will be a judgment day coming for everyone and that a loving God will make the final determination about what is to be punished and what is to be forgiven for all. In addition to that, they also violate on a daily basis the commandment in the Christian Bible to “judge not, lest yea be judged.” It is also interesting to note that Texas has just executed its five hundredth prisoner, a woman, and has done more of these executions by far than any other state in the United States. In Texas, an “eye for an eye” is still the rule despite the changing times and the admonitions by people such as the Pope to stop this barbaric practice from a bygone age.
IOVHO,
Regards,
Joe
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.
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