Covered Eyes, Broken Hearts, So Much to Lose: The Hypocrisy of Texas’ Latest Abortion Ban
“I will always fight for life as your governor," Texas Governor Greg Abbott told a crowd at an anti-choice rally in 2017, "and I will ensure that every child in Texas has a chance at life.”
I have been writing about abortion bans for almost two decades. I have seen men like Abbott take every opportunity to stand in front of a microphone and talk about the sanctity of life. I have seen white men stand on the steps of their state capitol and wax incessantly about protecting the innocent.
But as I listen to them talk about the sanctity of unborn life, I can’t help but rage against their willful carelessness with the lives of those already here, and in need of protection and care.
“Our creator endowed us with the right to life and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion,” said Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas in a bill signing ceremony for Senate Bill 8 (SB8). The Legislature "worked together on a bipartisan basis to pass a bill that I'm about to sign that ensures that the life of every unborn child who has a heartbeat will be saved from the ravages of abortion.”
Yet in 2011, Texas was sued for underfunding its schools. The State Supreme Court found the approach to funding Texas schools was flawed, but constitutional. They encouraged, but stopped short of mandating, the state to change their approach. No changes were made, and in 2020 Texas met merely 4 out of 10 benchmarks for preschool. (Source: UH Institute for Research on Women Gender and Sexuality 2021 Annual Report).
Texas ranks 42nd in the nation on state investment in education.
At this point, it’s clear that the commitment to under-education is by design.
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Earlier this year, during the terrible winter storm in Texas that left millions without power and heat during the coldest weather in decades, three children and their grandmother died in a house fire. Jackie Pham Nguyen said she doesn't remember much about the Feb. 16 incident that killed her mother, Loan Le, and her three children, Olivia, 11, Edison, 8, and Colette, 5. Doug Adolph, a spokesperson with the Sugar Land Fire Department guessed at how this could have happened: "Obviously they were trying to stay warm,” he told reporters. "We can't say that's what the cause was, we just think we know they were using a fireplace."
"Tragic does not even begin to describe" the suffering Texans endured, Abbott said from the State Emergency Operations Center in Austin days after the storm passed. "Many of you are angry — and you have a right to be. I'm angry too. At a time when essential services were needed the most, the system broke. You deserve answers. You will get those answers."
Thus far, the primary legislative solution offered has been in the form of House Bill 10, which would change the way the Electric Reliability Council of Texas is governed by giving more board seats to political appointees. Despite the fact that deregulation of the industry was clearly the cause of the problem, no electrical or energy expertise will be required for these appointees, only that they live in Texas.
The Governor would be allowed to appoint 3 of the 5 new board members.
At this point, it’s clear that corruption is the only non-negiotiable.
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Texas is the ninth state to pass this kind of abortion ban, which was signed by Governor on May 19, 2021. The anti-choice movement strategically, but inaccurately calls them “fetal heartbeat bills.” The term is willful mischaracterization of the truth (a lie, as it turns out), because at six weeks of gestation there is neither a fetus nor a heartbeat.
Most abortion restrictions are enforced by states against abortion providers. SB8 is different: It would allow private citizens to sue anyone who provided a banned abortion, or anyone who contributes any support to the person getting the banned abortion. This part of the law is designed to punish doctors and nurses who provide abortion care. The law wouldn’t stop at doctors and nurses, though. It would allow for clinic staff to be sued. It would allow anyone who contributes to an abortion fund or pro-choice organization to be sued. It would allow anyone who gives a person a ride to or from the clinic to be sued.
During his campaign for Governor, Greg Abbott and his wife Cecila sat down with the Houston Chronicle for an interview about his views on abortion. At that time, he threaded a careful needle, working hard not to express overly extreme anti-choice views, saying:
“This involves more than just the birthing process. This is a full life process. Our responsibility is to support a woman in any way we can - whether it be through child support, through the adoption process, through other medical challenges she may deal with. And we want to be as supportive as we possibly can.”
While in office, however, the governor has signed some of the most regressive reproductive health care bills in the country, including HB2 which shut down all but 9 clinics in the state, and was struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. In SB8, there is no exception made for survivors of rape or incest. After some political outcry, the Texas legislature amended the bill to create an exception, saying that a rapist would not be permitted to use the law to sue the providers who gave his victim an abortion. But this exception applies only to those who have been convicted of rape. In Texas, more than 91% of rapes go unreported. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, as of right this February there are over 6,000 untested rape kits sitting on shelves.
In addition to this abysmal record on protecting survivors of violence, since 2013 the Governor has opposed every effort to increase access to healthcare in the state. This despite the fact that Texas has the highest level of uninsured people in the country. In fact, just a couple of weeks before it passed SB8, and with less than 20 minutes of debate on the floor, the Texas House rejected a proposal that would have expanded health care coverage for uninsured Texans, including the millions of working poor who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford to buy their own health insurance.
At this point, it’s clear that our health is never their priority.
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A great myth regarding the abortion debate in the US, at least over here on the “pro-choice” side--what could more accurately be characterized as the “pro-life” side--is the idea that there is something that we can say, some statistic we can share, a painful story we can tell, that will shift the understanding of the people who think differently from us.
If we beseech our elected officials for the humanity of women; if we tell hundreds of stories to make clear that queer and trans people are vulnerable, not harmful, if we can adequately communicate just how wrenching it is to be poor, will something crack open in the hearts of those who are poised to write and pass legislation that makes the difference between our life and death?
In the US, nearly 12 million children are poor. This amounts to 1 in 7 kids, who make up almost one-third of all people living in poverty in this country. Anyone who claims to care about innocent life should be spending every moment of their energy directed at this horrifying fact.
According to the CDC, nearly 33 million people in the US are uninsured. As we face a global pandemic that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives, any politician who refuses to expand access to health care at this time cannot be seen seriously as a proponent of life.
One in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually assaulted by the age of 18, according to the Nation Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence.
The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found that 47% of transgender people are sexually assaulted at some point in their lifetime.
Of course, I could go on and on. The numbers tell the story. But those who support and pass bills like SB8 are covering their eyes to these facts, and turning away from all of us who need our government to protect us.
At this point, it is clear that the hypocrisy is unrelenting.
It’s clear that the suffering is the point.