Here’s one for a bright and sunny Saturday. A woman in Texas, Kate Cox, whose unborn baby has been diagnosed with trisomy 18, which is fatal to the fetus and can be dangerous and even fatal to the mother in most if not all cases, sued to get a Texas judge to allow her to get an abortion. Cox is 20 weeks pregnant and has been to the emergency room several times to be treated for pain and vaginal discharge caused by her pregnancy.
The doctor and this woman should counter-sue. Paxton, along with his compatriots, are completely void of what a person’s body goes through when choosing to have an abortion or a viable pregnancy. Infuriates me!😡
I made this comment/story here some months ago. But your column today triggers me to share it again:
WRITTEN IN MARCH, 2023
Recently I saw a French movie made in 2021 which brought back a memory of my junior year, 1962-3, at Colgate University in upstate New York.
The movie is called “Happening”, and it is about a girl who gets pregnant in the 1960’s when abortion was illegal in France, Great Britain, and most of Europe. Ironically, it was freely available to the “enslaved” women behind the Iron Curtain.
The girl, Anne, is an excellent student and has plans to get a university degree and move up in economic/social class. Her having this baby would absolutely put an end to those aspirations. She has nobody but herself to help her, so she resorts to all sorts of primitive methods of abortion, all dangerous. I’ll stop my summary. The movie is very graphic. It can be streamed on HULU or AMC+, or rented or bought everywhere.
I found the film to be a glimpse into the French and American past which is again the American present. As ugly for girls and women as I remember it. I am 80, and I thought those days were finished, but America is regressing, and Womens’ Rights are back to what they were in my long past college days.
The movie brought to my mind how I helped a woman, my landlady, get an illegal abortion in the fall of 1962.
I found a furnished apartment above a garage which was one big room plus bath and closet. I bought a TV (I liked Steve Allen at 10), a stereo, beer (tiny kitchen area) and liquor. The rent was $50 a month, utilities included. I never cooked, as I continued paying for breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Beta, or I ate in town. All my laundry was done, as usual, by the cleaners in town. I lived a lot like the way the Navy took care of its officers when at sea or in a Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ) on land.
My landlady was single, in her late 30’s, looked sort of fat, and had two young boys; one in high school and the other around 12. She had some sort of office job in town. I would see the boys more than her; we would just meet every now and then as I got in or out of my car. So, I was a bit surprised when she knocked on my door, a first.
What she wanted from me was for me to pay seven months rent in advance, $350. She said she needed it immediately as “time was running out.” She had $300, but needed $650. Somebody had let her down. I told her to borrow against her house, she didn’t own the house, but had a long-term lease, so that option didn’t exist. Actually, that fact made me wary. If she and the kids just left town, I’d lose that money because the owner had no agreement with me. Finally, she told me that she was pregnant and had to have a $650 illegal abortion right away. She said that she could hardly support her boys and herself now; that she would lose her job; that she could only take care of a baby if she stopped working. Then came the tears and, of course, out came my local bank's checkbook. $350 in 1962 is about $2500 in 2023’s dollars.
She cashed my check the next morning, and went somewhere, probably a motel, for the abortion. I saw her a few days later, and she told me she felt okay, and thanked me, again.
You may find this hard to believe, but five years later I again met her oldest son. He was a sailor on the USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), on which was my squadron, Attack Squadron 52. He had seen me somewhere on this ship of 4500 men, recognized me, tracked me down, and presented himself—-in a restricted area of the ship, accompanied by a Marine guard. I was in the Intelligence room where briefings and planning went on.
The Marine asked for Mr. Hope while the sailor stood outside. I waved him in, and he told me who he was. I asked after his mother. She was fine, and still lived in that house.
I showed him around, and I gave him the same sort of briefing I would give a VIP about our bombing of North Vietnam and Laos. He loved it, smart kid that he obviously was, and understood everything. It was an eye-opener for the Marine, too.
We all shook hands, said good-bye, and I never saw him again.
Were I today to assist any woman to get an abortion, as I had helped my landlady, in “modern-day” Texas, I would be possibly subjected to prison. Texas: Go f yourself. I’d do it again if asked.
Rich Hope, thank you for this excellent comment. May I nitpick about a minor point, in order to make (what I consider) a larger point?
You note that in the 1960s, “Ironically, [abortion] was freely available to the “enslaved” women behind the Iron Curtain.” Many women in the Soviet Union had abortions because effective contraception was unavailable, and/or because they could not afford to feed a(nother) child. Good reasons, but not really a free choice. Thirty-odd years later, millions of women in China had abortions because they were required/forced to do so by national policy. In the USSR, in China, and now in too many states of the US (though with opposite effect), women are and were enslaved by political forces that dictate the terms of their reproductive healthcare without regard for the woman’s best interests or their medical providers’ professional determinations.
Thank you. IIRC in some times and places -- Ceausescu's Romania comes to mind -- women couldn't get abortions OR birth control because the state wanted to up the birthrate. Patriarchy calls the shots, though the nature of the shots may vary according to patriarchy's priorities.
I also remember back in the day some right-on USSR apologists crowing that 2/3 of the Soviet Union's physicians were women, at a time when the number of women physicians in the U.S. was one step above abysmal. It had to be pointed out to them that in the USSR, "physician" was a fairly low-status, poorly paid job. High-status, well-paid jobs, like upper -level positions in the Communist Party, were held overwhelmingly by men.
Donald Trump is a mere pimple on the ass of Ghenigas Kahn and a dip shit to boot. Why does anyone listen to this asshole except dudes with shit for brains.
I saw your name and I thought "Hale Irwin, the great golfer, Bravo Zulued me!!". Then I sort of looked you up. We have some slight connections. Please email me at smartstaff@sbcglobal.net
You have no idea how woke I am to that idea, even as a man. It's simply true. The spiritual side of me that exists knows that what we consider evil as Homo sapiens flows mostly through men.
I think so many men do, Donald. Certainly the men close to me (son husband sons in law, nephews - all of them) Those who are rational, intelligent, can empathize and who love the women in their lives.
Also who understand that it would be outrageous as an individual seen through the lens of bodily functions - even as elevated as childbearing.
Ha still thinking about your comment. Women, please wake up. A lot of you are already, we just need most of you. Look, it is pretty much us running roughshod across the Earth. Always been this way. We never fully grow up the way YOU think of growing up. Trust me.
Donald is right. With men (not all, to be sure) it’s all about the amygdala, the residual primitive reptilian brain inside every one of us—dominance and control and beating the other guy. That’s the essence of “business.” At its best, it’s the drive that pushed explorers to seek new lands and invent new things and take us to the moon, but it’s got some nasty side effects.
As a resident of Texas, I deal with the shame, anger, and frustration that the Republican politicians heap upon its own citizens on a daily basis. The gerrymandered legislature and the corrupt governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general are a disgrace to the state and the nation.
They think women are property and they are obsessed with control and punishment. Damn all right-wingers to the lowest circle of hell. Ms. Cox should flee to New Mexico, where abortions are still legal, and have the procedure done there, and be damned to Texas. Where the hell is the DOJ?
I want to know, where is the church? Or are they too busy paying for pedophile priests to be concerned with what is patently a case of medical care that no politician, man or woman, has any business in. We don’t live in the 1400’s any more, medical care has improved significantly, she needs medical care that her Dr’s know how to deliver, WTF! How come the wrongness of this isn’t being preached from every pulpit every Sunday, again WTF!. “Christian” hypocrisy is the reason so many find something much better to do on Sundays. 🤷♂️ If it was my wife we would have left texas yesterday, and if anything happened to her, there would be no place for paxton to hide that he would be safe.
The churches hate women; they believe women are sinful and evil. They love patriarchal control. I am 73; I was raised as a Catholic and walked away from the church when I was 14 because of the hypocrisy that was obvious to me even at that age. Don't count on Christians to support women's rights. Perhaps it's time for Texass to secede and for all good folks to get the hell out of there.
Please don't damn all churches for the sins of Catholic and evangelical denominations. Before Roe, Judson Memorial Church led New York action against abortion bans. Mainstream Protestants are no more anti-choice than are Reform Jews.
I understand that and agree. But the power and influence rest in the hands of Catholics and evangelicals. Mainstream Protestants and reform Jews are on the outside looking in; the right wing doesn't give a damn what they think.
I keep waiting to hear about a Reform Jewish couple suing Paxton et al for the abridgment of their Religious Freedom by the banning of abortion, even to save the life of the Mother. And even more I look forward to seeing Samuel "Torquemada " Alitos head explode as he ties himself into knots defending his unconscionable Opinion scuttling Roe.
To me, Linda, that suggests a cohesion I don't think mainstream Protestantism feels with evangelism or the American bishops' Catholicism. The bishops may deplore Pope Francis because they consider him less aligned with them than with U.S. Protestants.
I hope at this point she has made that trip. I believe she lives in Dallas. It is something like a 10 hour drive to get to the border with New Mexico. Not a good trip for a 5 month pregnant woman. Even a plane flight would be risky. But I hope she does it. I am embarrassed to admit I live in Texas now. There are good people who live here but what with gerrymandering, corrupt politicians, etc., well.......
Lived in New Mexico for a couple of years in the 1970s. Too many Texans then and nobody liked them as they were considered to be arrogant and ignorant. I see nothing has changed, except perhaps the ignorance has worsened.
Yeah but...Denver is the most unfriendly city in the US and it has the highest percentage of lawyers in the US so do the math. Also Coloradoans really don't like anyone. There's that.
What we would hear (in Austin) were reports from people who liked to go to Colorado for skiing vacations, because that's the nearest place for that for Texans, but evidently they wear out their welcome mighty fast. Pity. But not surprising. Those would be rich snob Texans probably, with the money for such expensive hobbies, probably Dallas or Houston folks. Who we disliked in Austin, too.
When we loved in Austin we visited New Mex a few times and always enjoyed it there -- considered it as a retirement destination, in fact, but it wasn't in the cards, despite having many attractive features and amenities. Some Austin friends had relatives in West Texas that just moved to NM (I think it is Albuquerque). Texas state and UT pension insurances have NM as an "in network" provider so it makes financial sense for some to look there as a retirement home. Sorry if so many are idiots who ruin things for the natives and give the rest of us a bad name! (Not surprising, tho')
This is absolutely heartbreaking 💔. Dystopian doesn’t even come close to describing the atmosphere for women of child bearing age in Texas. That a literal handful of MEN can dictate what a woman can do to ensure HER OWN health is despicable.
Any female of child bearing age, including adolescent girls, is risking her life by living in Texas. Any person who loves a woman/adolescent of child bearing age, who does anything to try to save the life of their loved one who is experiencing a life threatening pregnancy complication risks going to prison.
I went looking for the word for government run by criminals and found someone had coined the word criminocracy which is brilliant. Kleptocracy is just too limited.
I live in upstate NY and wouldn’t go anywhere near Texas, Florida or any other red state hellhole. Between the lack of respect women’s rights and utter disregard for the danger from unregulated weapons I’ll continue to live in the blue Northeast. And vote to help keep it blue.
I never gave much credence to the secession idea, but I do believe we may have irreconcilable differences in this country. And if King Donald the First retakes office I’m totally down with it. Mar a Lago can become the new WH for the Deplorable States of America. We vermin get to keep the original.
I’m familiar with that word and it definitely is appropriate, but considering the utter disregard for laws by Trump, Paxton et al I’m not sure it’s precisely the right one. Either/or.
Texans seceded from Mexico when that country outlawed slavery. They found a home in slave holding USA. No longer allowed to hold women as slaves, Texas now chooses to kill those who suffer a medical problem that fails to meet the rules of their Christofascist govt.
The US should indeed build a border wall - around Texas.
I understand. We moved out of Austin over two years ago for Madison. But circumstances (financial, health, support network) could compel us to return (not to Austin, tho) some day. It's a very hard thing to face, since the place has only gotten worse in so many ways in just this short amount of time.
I just texted my brother in California who is a doctor to get his take if there is anything she can do. How about the doctor's oath they take when becoming a doctor, doesn't that count for anything? I am so angry and just hope we can get control of all of Congress again to codify Roe or make it legal again for everyone! We are in a bad state, this country because of DT!
Discounting the cattle for a moment, approximately 50% of the citizens of Texas are female. Either they have been drinking the kool-aid or they subscribe to the rightness of 'The Handmaids Tale'. If, neither of these is true, then now is time for the 50% plus the sane male voters (there are some) to lead the charge and wipe this insanity and those that perpetuate it away from Texas politics and the law. Make no mistake, this treatment of women is nothing more than politics masquerading as social values for the betterment of the politicians, fueled by a lack of respect for that same 50%.
Hey, if you are of the opinion that your Deity plays favorites and creates some to rule over others, you don’t feel an obligation to respect those you regard as your inferiors. Slavery and misogyny have this in common.
I am afraid I am not following your train of thought. Inferring that some form of (any) "Deity" is a cause or a feature of restricting a woman's rights in relation to any topic is a smokescreen to find a way to keep women as subservient to males. I wholeheartedly reject that gender determines, or should have any value in determining a persons social or human rights, just as I reject that race provides a simple means to "naturally" segregate humans.
I agree completely that gender or race or other differences do not determine a person’s worth.
I was trying to say that in some people’s concept of God, He created them to dominate others, and they need not respect anyone below them in the hierarchy they think He intended.
While living in Hawaii is not exactly living in Paradise, it’s still infinitely better than being a woman in a red state on the Mainland. None of this nonsense of banning/restrictin the reproductive rights of women like in Texas, thank God. I cannot fathom what is wrong with those people especially when it came to all this BS about abortions. That’s a decision for a woman and a doctor to make, not politicians and lawyers/judges, Attorney Generals, etc. What idiocy in the 21st century…
Doctor's need to sue Paxton! Can this woman go out of state to obtain an abortion? If women want to get pregnant in Texas, move! Texas doesn't care about you at all!
If this woman dies, Ken Paxton should be tried for murder and be eligible for the death penalty under Texas law.
The doctor and this woman should counter-sue. Paxton, along with his compatriots, are completely void of what a person’s body goes through when choosing to have an abortion or a viable pregnancy. Infuriates me!😡
Amen. A thousand times amen. Paxton is dirt.
Nice thought, but you know perfectly well that will NEVER happen!
if, god forbid, that happens, I recommend NOT holding your breath.
the infuriating part of all this is that if any woman dumb enough to fuck Ken Paxton found herself knocked up, she'd have her abortion YESTERDAY.
this shit is strictly performative and won't last.
in the meantime, being a woman in Texas is going to continue to suck.
Pretty much being ANYONE in Texas at this time sucks.
Well said
Ditto!
I made this comment/story here some months ago. But your column today triggers me to share it again:
WRITTEN IN MARCH, 2023
Recently I saw a French movie made in 2021 which brought back a memory of my junior year, 1962-3, at Colgate University in upstate New York.
The movie is called “Happening”, and it is about a girl who gets pregnant in the 1960’s when abortion was illegal in France, Great Britain, and most of Europe. Ironically, it was freely available to the “enslaved” women behind the Iron Curtain.
The girl, Anne, is an excellent student and has plans to get a university degree and move up in economic/social class. Her having this baby would absolutely put an end to those aspirations. She has nobody but herself to help her, so she resorts to all sorts of primitive methods of abortion, all dangerous. I’ll stop my summary. The movie is very graphic. It can be streamed on HULU or AMC+, or rented or bought everywhere.
I found the film to be a glimpse into the French and American past which is again the American present. As ugly for girls and women as I remember it. I am 80, and I thought those days were finished, but America is regressing, and Womens’ Rights are back to what they were in my long past college days.
The movie brought to my mind how I helped a woman, my landlady, get an illegal abortion in the fall of 1962.
I found a furnished apartment above a garage which was one big room plus bath and closet. I bought a TV (I liked Steve Allen at 10), a stereo, beer (tiny kitchen area) and liquor. The rent was $50 a month, utilities included. I never cooked, as I continued paying for breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Beta, or I ate in town. All my laundry was done, as usual, by the cleaners in town. I lived a lot like the way the Navy took care of its officers when at sea or in a Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ) on land.
My landlady was single, in her late 30’s, looked sort of fat, and had two young boys; one in high school and the other around 12. She had some sort of office job in town. I would see the boys more than her; we would just meet every now and then as I got in or out of my car. So, I was a bit surprised when she knocked on my door, a first.
What she wanted from me was for me to pay seven months rent in advance, $350. She said she needed it immediately as “time was running out.” She had $300, but needed $650. Somebody had let her down. I told her to borrow against her house, she didn’t own the house, but had a long-term lease, so that option didn’t exist. Actually, that fact made me wary. If she and the kids just left town, I’d lose that money because the owner had no agreement with me. Finally, she told me that she was pregnant and had to have a $650 illegal abortion right away. She said that she could hardly support her boys and herself now; that she would lose her job; that she could only take care of a baby if she stopped working. Then came the tears and, of course, out came my local bank's checkbook. $350 in 1962 is about $2500 in 2023’s dollars.
She cashed my check the next morning, and went somewhere, probably a motel, for the abortion. I saw her a few days later, and she told me she felt okay, and thanked me, again.
You may find this hard to believe, but five years later I again met her oldest son. He was a sailor on the USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), on which was my squadron, Attack Squadron 52. He had seen me somewhere on this ship of 4500 men, recognized me, tracked me down, and presented himself—-in a restricted area of the ship, accompanied by a Marine guard. I was in the Intelligence room where briefings and planning went on.
The Marine asked for Mr. Hope while the sailor stood outside. I waved him in, and he told me who he was. I asked after his mother. She was fine, and still lived in that house.
I showed him around, and I gave him the same sort of briefing I would give a VIP about our bombing of North Vietnam and Laos. He loved it, smart kid that he obviously was, and understood everything. It was an eye-opener for the Marine, too.
We all shook hands, said good-bye, and I never saw him again.
Were I today to assist any woman to get an abortion, as I had helped my landlady, in “modern-day” Texas, I would be possibly subjected to prison. Texas: Go f yourself. I’d do it again if asked.
Rich Hope, thank you for this excellent comment. May I nitpick about a minor point, in order to make (what I consider) a larger point?
You note that in the 1960s, “Ironically, [abortion] was freely available to the “enslaved” women behind the Iron Curtain.” Many women in the Soviet Union had abortions because effective contraception was unavailable, and/or because they could not afford to feed a(nother) child. Good reasons, but not really a free choice. Thirty-odd years later, millions of women in China had abortions because they were required/forced to do so by national policy. In the USSR, in China, and now in too many states of the US (though with opposite effect), women are and were enslaved by political forces that dictate the terms of their reproductive healthcare without regard for the woman’s best interests or their medical providers’ professional determinations.
Thank you. IIRC in some times and places -- Ceausescu's Romania comes to mind -- women couldn't get abortions OR birth control because the state wanted to up the birthrate. Patriarchy calls the shots, though the nature of the shots may vary according to patriarchy's priorities.
I also remember back in the day some right-on USSR apologists crowing that 2/3 of the Soviet Union's physicians were women, at a time when the number of women physicians in the U.S. was one step above abysmal. It had to be pointed out to them that in the USSR, "physician" was a fairly low-status, poorly paid job. High-status, well-paid jobs, like upper -level positions in the Communist Party, were held overwhelmingly by men.
If I follow the money, where is Paxton?
Thank you. I meant to make the point about upping birthrated—which is also part of the picture in the US, at last for white women—but lost track.
Argh, typos. “birthrates” and “at least”
Oh!
Rich, there's at least 60 million retards out thar.
Actually, more like 74-million, all the ones who voted for *Rump in 2020.
And Paxton.
U R rigjt
Tanka
Donald Trump is a mere pimple on the ass of Ghenigas Kahn and a dip shit to boot. Why does anyone listen to this asshole except dudes with shit for brains.
Bravo Zulu.
I saw your name and I thought "Hale Irwin, the great golfer, Bravo Zulued me!!". Then I sort of looked you up. We have some slight connections. Please email me at smartstaff@sbcglobal.net
You are a hero. Paxton and his ilk are criminals, and need to be taught a lesson.
Whereas the men in Texas are the ones as dumb as the cattle they’re famous for. But worse, malicious fuckers too.
You have no idea how woke I am to that idea, even as a man. It's simply true. The spiritual side of me that exists knows that what we consider evil as Homo sapiens flows mostly through men.
I think so many men do, Donald. Certainly the men close to me (son husband sons in law, nephews - all of them) Those who are rational, intelligent, can empathize and who love the women in their lives.
Also who understand that it would be outrageous as an individual seen through the lens of bodily functions - even as elevated as childbearing.
That is literally human history, no?
Ha still thinking about your comment. Women, please wake up. A lot of you are already, we just need most of you. Look, it is pretty much us running roughshod across the Earth. Always been this way. We never fully grow up the way YOU think of growing up. Trust me.
Donald is right. With men (not all, to be sure) it’s all about the amygdala, the residual primitive reptilian brain inside every one of us—dominance and control and beating the other guy. That’s the essence of “business.” At its best, it’s the drive that pushed explorers to seek new lands and invent new things and take us to the moon, but it’s got some nasty side effects.
Unimaginable that it isn’t self evident. With you here
Yes, they are dumb but get off Scott-free as responsible for the pregnancies they cause.
I think they’d experience a revelation on women’s rights if they were ordered to pay child support, don’t you?
Bingo!
Amen!
As a resident of Texas, I deal with the shame, anger, and frustration that the Republican politicians heap upon its own citizens on a daily basis. The gerrymandered legislature and the corrupt governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general are a disgrace to the state and the nation.
I feel for you.
They think women are property and they are obsessed with control and punishment. Damn all right-wingers to the lowest circle of hell. Ms. Cox should flee to New Mexico, where abortions are still legal, and have the procedure done there, and be damned to Texas. Where the hell is the DOJ?
I want to know, where is the church? Or are they too busy paying for pedophile priests to be concerned with what is patently a case of medical care that no politician, man or woman, has any business in. We don’t live in the 1400’s any more, medical care has improved significantly, she needs medical care that her Dr’s know how to deliver, WTF! How come the wrongness of this isn’t being preached from every pulpit every Sunday, again WTF!. “Christian” hypocrisy is the reason so many find something much better to do on Sundays. 🤷♂️ If it was my wife we would have left texas yesterday, and if anything happened to her, there would be no place for paxton to hide that he would be safe.
The churches hate women; they believe women are sinful and evil. They love patriarchal control. I am 73; I was raised as a Catholic and walked away from the church when I was 14 because of the hypocrisy that was obvious to me even at that age. Don't count on Christians to support women's rights. Perhaps it's time for Texass to secede and for all good folks to get the hell out of there.
Just celebrated the Catholic feast day of "All You Mothers Are Whores" yesterday.
Now look what you did MaryPat, I've sprayed coffee onto my jeans.
Just spit coffee on my kitchen table.
Sorry about that. Maybe this clip will make it up to you:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1394143141179611?mibextid=9drbnH
Sorry about that! Maybe this clip will make it up to you:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1394143141179611?mibextid=9drbnH
Woof! Just spit coffee all over the kitchen table!
Please don't damn all churches for the sins of Catholic and evangelical denominations. Before Roe, Judson Memorial Church led New York action against abortion bans. Mainstream Protestants are no more anti-choice than are Reform Jews.
I understand that and agree. But the power and influence rest in the hands of Catholics and evangelicals. Mainstream Protestants and reform Jews are on the outside looking in; the right wing doesn't give a damn what they think.
I keep waiting to hear about a Reform Jewish couple suing Paxton et al for the abridgment of their Religious Freedom by the banning of abortion, even to save the life of the Mother. And even more I look forward to seeing Samuel "Torquemada " Alitos head explode as he ties himself into knots defending his unconscionable Opinion scuttling Roe.
Yup, Texans are living in the Inquisition.
To me, Linda, that suggests a cohesion I don't think mainstream Protestantism feels with evangelism or the American bishops' Catholicism. The bishops may deplore Pope Francis because they consider him less aligned with them than with U.S. Protestants.
busy...
Yes-- why doesn't she just go to nearby New Mexico and get the abortion there?
I hope at this point she has made that trip. I believe she lives in Dallas. It is something like a 10 hour drive to get to the border with New Mexico. Not a good trip for a 5 month pregnant woman. Even a plane flight would be risky. But I hope she does it. I am embarrassed to admit I live in Texas now. There are good people who live here but what with gerrymandering, corrupt politicians, etc., well.......
Please no. We have enough Texans in New Mexico. Too many. We're good, thank you.
I have noted that Texans are not popular in any of the adjacent states (or Colorado) -- probably for good reasons.
Lived in New Mexico for a couple of years in the 1970s. Too many Texans then and nobody liked them as they were considered to be arrogant and ignorant. I see nothing has changed, except perhaps the ignorance has worsened.
Ignorance with power - a devastating and deadly combination.
Yes, and it now seems to be the American way.
Yeah but...Denver is the most unfriendly city in the US and it has the highest percentage of lawyers in the US so do the math. Also Coloradoans really don't like anyone. There's that.
What we would hear (in Austin) were reports from people who liked to go to Colorado for skiing vacations, because that's the nearest place for that for Texans, but evidently they wear out their welcome mighty fast. Pity. But not surprising. Those would be rich snob Texans probably, with the money for such expensive hobbies, probably Dallas or Houston folks. Who we disliked in Austin, too.
When we loved in Austin we visited New Mex a few times and always enjoyed it there -- considered it as a retirement destination, in fact, but it wasn't in the cards, despite having many attractive features and amenities. Some Austin friends had relatives in West Texas that just moved to NM (I think it is Albuquerque). Texas state and UT pension insurances have NM as an "in network" provider so it makes financial sense for some to look there as a retirement home. Sorry if so many are idiots who ruin things for the natives and give the rest of us a bad name! (Not surprising, tho')
This is absolutely heartbreaking 💔. Dystopian doesn’t even come close to describing the atmosphere for women of child bearing age in Texas. That a literal handful of MEN can dictate what a woman can do to ensure HER OWN health is despicable.
Any female of child bearing age, including adolescent girls, is risking her life by living in Texas. Any person who loves a woman/adolescent of child bearing age, who does anything to try to save the life of their loved one who is experiencing a life threatening pregnancy complication risks going to prison.
Texas is every woman’s dystopian nightmare.
Yes. If you don't live there don't move there. Don't send your daughters to college there. Beware.
Eventually the only occupants of Texas will be retirees.
I went looking for the word for government run by criminals and found someone had coined the word criminocracy which is brilliant. Kleptocracy is just too limited.
I live in upstate NY and wouldn’t go anywhere near Texas, Florida or any other red state hellhole. Between the lack of respect women’s rights and utter disregard for the danger from unregulated weapons I’ll continue to live in the blue Northeast. And vote to help keep it blue.
I never gave much credence to the secession idea, but I do believe we may have irreconcilable differences in this country. And if King Donald the First retakes office I’m totally down with it. Mar a Lago can become the new WH for the Deplorable States of America. We vermin get to keep the original.
The word you seek is KAKISTOCRAY - where the worst of society runs the govt.
I’m familiar with that word and it definitely is appropriate, but considering the utter disregard for laws by Trump, Paxton et al I’m not sure it’s precisely the right one. Either/or.
Texans seceded from Mexico when that country outlawed slavery. They found a home in slave holding USA. No longer allowed to hold women as slaves, Texas now chooses to kill those who suffer a medical problem that fails to meet the rules of their Christofascist govt.
The US should indeed build a border wall - around Texas.
Maybe build the wall around Abbott and his ilk. I bet most Texans would like to see him gone.
Thanks
A criminal fraudster as AG making laws in Texas. What insanity.
I live in Texas - but this is the kind of medieval horror that makes me wonder why.
I understand. We moved out of Austin over two years ago for Madison. But circumstances (financial, health, support network) could compel us to return (not to Austin, tho) some day. It's a very hard thing to face, since the place has only gotten worse in so many ways in just this short amount of time.
We're getting a lot of Californians and other Damyankee types (read: civilized) migrating in. There may be hope in a decade or two.
Just vote! this asshole out of office.
Cruelty is the point...this wouldn’t be an issue if men could get pregnant
I have heard it said so many times: if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.
I just texted my brother in California who is a doctor to get his take if there is anything she can do. How about the doctor's oath they take when becoming a doctor, doesn't that count for anything? I am so angry and just hope we can get control of all of Congress again to codify Roe or make it legal again for everyone! We are in a bad state, this country because of DT!
Discounting the cattle for a moment, approximately 50% of the citizens of Texas are female. Either they have been drinking the kool-aid or they subscribe to the rightness of 'The Handmaids Tale'. If, neither of these is true, then now is time for the 50% plus the sane male voters (there are some) to lead the charge and wipe this insanity and those that perpetuate it away from Texas politics and the law. Make no mistake, this treatment of women is nothing more than politics masquerading as social values for the betterment of the politicians, fueled by a lack of respect for that same 50%.
Hey, if you are of the opinion that your Deity plays favorites and creates some to rule over others, you don’t feel an obligation to respect those you regard as your inferiors. Slavery and misogyny have this in common.
I am afraid I am not following your train of thought. Inferring that some form of (any) "Deity" is a cause or a feature of restricting a woman's rights in relation to any topic is a smokescreen to find a way to keep women as subservient to males. I wholeheartedly reject that gender determines, or should have any value in determining a persons social or human rights, just as I reject that race provides a simple means to "naturally" segregate humans.
I agree completely that gender or race or other differences do not determine a person’s worth.
I was trying to say that in some people’s concept of God, He created them to dominate others, and they need not respect anyone below them in the hierarchy they think He intended.
Gerrymandering.
Yup.
Agree 100%, re what the treatment of women truly is, under the male politicians’ bullshit. Spot on!
While living in Hawaii is not exactly living in Paradise, it’s still infinitely better than being a woman in a red state on the Mainland. None of this nonsense of banning/restrictin the reproductive rights of women like in Texas, thank God. I cannot fathom what is wrong with those people especially when it came to all this BS about abortions. That’s a decision for a woman and a doctor to make, not politicians and lawyers/judges, Attorney Generals, etc. What idiocy in the 21st century…
Doctor's need to sue Paxton! Can this woman go out of state to obtain an abortion? If women want to get pregnant in Texas, move! Texas doesn't care about you at all!
If Ken Paxton's daughter were in Kate Cox's shoes, she would be able to get an abortion without facing any civil or criminal liabilities.
Oh, don't you just know it. Satin sheets and full time medical care for a week. I am so angry.