The editor of the Baptist Standard has posed a valid question: If the Texas Legislature is going to approve a bill that bans abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy, is the state going to be prepared for the arrival of a lot of babies?

http://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion/editorial/15273-editorial-get-ready-for-all-those-babies

The Legislature is meeting in its second special session in a month to consider some bills that it left undone. One of them is that anti-abortion bill that Senate Democrats, led by Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, filibustered to a temporary demise in June.

It’s back. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the main man of the Senate, vows to push the bill onto the books. More demonstrations are planned. It’s unlikely that the bill will die again.

Baptist Standard editor Marv Knox’s essay does wonder whether the state is going to be prepared to spend the money it needs to care for these children.

He writes this: “Texas is among the nation’s leaders in child poverty, teen pregnancy, dropout rates and illiteracy. We’re also among the nation’s lowest-spending states on child poverty, teen pregnancy, dropout rates and illiteracy. Some people attribute these maladies to dependence on government, the product of a so-called welfare state. If that were true, then their incidence would be higher in states that spend the most on child welfare, anti-poverty programs and education, not the least-spending small-government states, like Texas.”

And then he writes this:

“Ironically, conservative states composed of higher percentages of Bible-believing Christians—from Texas across the South—suffer the blights of child poverty, teen pregnancy, dropout rates and illiteracy much more promiscuously than their more secular counterparts. Those are the states many Texans and Southerners call ‘pagan’ and ‘dark.’

“This disparity is an affront to the name of Jesus.”

Interesting, don’t you think?

Better get ready, Texas.