Straight Rights Watch: Texas

This is beginning to get ridiculous.

Women seeking an abortion would have to first get an ultrasound under a measure approved on Thursday by the Texas House of Representatives. 

The proposal, the first significant bill considered by the House this year, was designated by Republican Governor Rick Perry as an emergency priority. A similar measure has already been approved by the state Senate.

An emergency priority, Governor?  Your state has a $30 billion dollar deficit and forcing women seeking an abortion to get an ultrasound is an emergency priority?  Is the next emergency priority new tetherballs for playgrounds or did you already get to that one?

"Anytime you abort a human life, that's probably the most tragic procedure that could ever be performed," [the bill's author, Republican state Rep. Sid] Miller said. "If we can save human lives, that is an emergency."

Let's put aside all arguments about when consciousness or human life actually begins. Okay. Here, Sid stops just short of calling a woman who elects to have an abortion a murderer because he knows that anyone who knows the definition of "murder" would say to themselves after reading that, "Oh, he's equating one having an abortion to murdering someone."  You know what that is, ladies and gentlemen? Tact. This isn't his first tread-on-the-rights-of-women rodeo.

Also, Texas has put to death 466 people since 1982.  But don't worry, 95% of them were guilty.

"We want to make sure that they're fully informed, that they understand the medical consequences, the psychological consequences and everything involved in the procedure," said Miller.

Sid Miller believes it to be true that women have abortions for laughs.  For a story to tell over cocktails.

INT. TRENDY BAR -- NIGHT

The rich mahogany of the wall flourishes brilliantly in the light reflecting from the wall-to-wall mirror behind the bar. Gorgeous men and women are sprinkled about, dressed in form-fitting attire, probably swapping stories about how much sex they had in high school. Those bastards.

Two women are seated next to each other on stools- BLONDE and BRUNETTE:

          BLONDE
I finally got that well-deserved promotion today. You're looking at the new regional buyer!

          BRUNETTE
Congrats! I finally got that abortion today I always wanted!

From a stool, next to them:

          TUCKER MAX FAN
Did it match your shoes?
     (a really insecure laugh to hide how much he hates women because of their rejecting of his advances, and how this in turn makes him hate himself, resulting in him being a boorish knob also requiring himself to laugh because no one else will)
No, but really, do you date me?

          BRUNETTE
I'm not offended because we as women don't take abortions seriously. So yes, I do date you!

Now, I know what you're going to say: that the above is an exaggeration, that blondes are never worthy of a well-deserving promotion.  In response to you I say this: grow up, child.  Grow up.

Opponents said that the requirement would traumatize women already in a difficult situation.

Opponents?  More like accomplices to murder, right Sid?

During debate on the House floor, bill opponent Rep. Carol Alvarado held up a trans-vaginal probe used for sonograms early in pregnancy to illustrate what she called a "very intrusive process."

"This is not the jelly on the belly that most of you think," said Alvarado, a Houston Democrat. "This is government intrusion at its best."

Her actually saying "government intrusion at its best" on the House floor is beyond exceptional.

Democrats tried unsuccessfully to add a series of amendments to the bill. One of those said that if the woman decided not to go through with the abortion, the state would have to pay for the college education for the child.

I stand corrected: that's beyond exceptional.

Another, which also would have applied to cases in which the woman decided not to have the abortion, would have allowed women to get a court order to require the father of the child to get a vasectomy.

Well that's just madness.

Eighteen states regulate the provision of ultrasound by abortion providers, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

I stand corrected again: that's madness.

State Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, who serves as the House Democratic leader quickly issued a press release expressing her displeasure. "I am deeply disappointed that the Legislature is wasting precious time playing politics with the most personal of decisions rather than dealing with real and challenging issues affecting the state such as the $27 billion budget shortfall, job creation, and the economy," she said.

My bad, only a $27 billion shortfall, not $30 billion.  This changes everything.

Step one: Allow health-care providers in Wisconsin to not cover contraception.
Step two: Force women in South Dakota to sit through three days of "counseling" about them pursuing something they shouldn't do.
Step three: Force women in Texas to be subjected to "government intrusion".
[...]
The last step:  All sex not done between married heterosexuals solely in the name of procreation becomes sexcrime.