Texas Touts Terrible Anti-Abortion Law

Five Supreme Court Conservatives Won’t Block It. Most other Republican states plan to copy Texas’ anti-abortion lead as soon as possible.

By Judy Flander

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, along with the Legislature’s mostly Republican mostly male legislators have as much regard for women as the Taliban have for the Afghanistan women whose country was just conquered.

The Taliban’s way of keeping women down is to prevent them from going to school, making them quit their jobs and confining them in their homes. When Afghan women took to the streets in protest, they were chased home by Taliban soldiers wielding rifle butts and guns.

In the United States, Texas is leading a Taliban-inspired take-over of women’s reproductive health care. An incredibly new disregard for women went into effect September 1st when Governor Abbott signed a law banning abortions after six weeks of gestation.

Yes, Roe v. Wade ruled that abortions were okay up to 26 weeks. No, most women don’t know they are pregnant as early as six weeks. Before this heartless bill Texas women usually got their abortions before 20 weeks.

Does this bill end Roe v. Wade in Texas? Yes.

If you get pregnant — by rape or incest, or accident — forget Roe v. Wade. Women and girls who have been raped by strangers, friends or family members are expected to carry on and raise subsequent children if they can’t manage an abortion in Texas by six weeks. Not only pregnant women will be smacked by this outrage. Abbott’s law means real trouble for anyone who helps any woman in any way with getting an abortion past six weeks.

And diabolically, in this Texas nightmare, any private citizen from anywhere in or out of Texas can chase down abortion helpers and sue them. These aren’t cops. They will be ordinary people. Frequently strangers to the women whose assistants they pursue.

So that means the Governor and his henchman are shielded from breaking any laws.

Helpers as culprits could include anyone who accompanies the woman to get her abortion. Anyone who pays for the abortion. Also included of course, are the abortion providers, doctors, the neighbor next door, someone who sees the woman gets home safely after a procedure. The charge might even include the thoughtfulness of pouring a woman a glass of water.

And here’s the reward to this citizen for winning a case. $10,000! Anti-abortionists are delighted and who knows how many of them are already out looking for those people who’ve given help to a woman who has managed an abortion after the six week deadline. After all, the Texas governor and the Supreme Court have given them the green light.

Abbott has just about ended abortion in Texas. And his plan has interested all the rest of the Republican governors. Yes, there are still states where Roe v. Wade abortion rules are followed. But if a woman lives in a Red State the odds are she’ll have travel miles to a Blue State. Or hop a plane for Ireland. Or Mexico.

Mostly male politicians have been busy stamping on women’s health clinics and women’s rights for years. The Guttmacher Institute notes that there have been 561 abortion regulations over 47 states this year alone. Included are two to three day waiting periods, long “consultations,” ultra-sounds. And they have been knocking off abortion clinics by the hundreds.

Attaining abortion rights is a political nightmare with elected Republican governors and male politicians in at least 16 states. They just ignore Roe. They are so busy stamping out women’s health clinics, women’s rights, endangering their lives.

Worse yet, Roe v. Wade will soon be in the clutches of the five conservative Justices, three of which Donald Trump rushed into service with Roe v. Wade in mind. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case concerning a Mississippi law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks. The Mississippi Taliban is also asking the Court to kill Roe v. Wade. If they do, will the American Taliban have women jailed if they are proved to have had an abortion at all?

Or will they just make them quit school and jobs and stay home and take care a lot of children.