Tag Archives: abortion

local news, political news, State news

Abortion to ‘challenge’ Texas Legislature?

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The headline atop the front page of the Dallas Morning News screamed out that the new Texas Legislature faces many “challenges” as it prepares to get to work on our behalf for the next five months.

One of them surely is going to be abortion and whether legislators are intent on banning all abortive procedures, all of ’em, making women, spouses and docs criminals.

Newly sworn in Rep. Brent Money, R-Greenville, says categorically that Texas must ban all abortion, citing what he said is “God’s creation” being sacred to merit legislation by mere mortal human beings. He appeared this morning on WFAA-TV’s “Inside Politics” program.

I will disagree with the gentleman. He doesn’t seem to take into account what happens to a child who is born with debilitating deformities. Who cannot care for herself or himself. Whose birth puts Mama’s health — and life — in jeopardy.

I offer those caveats as a pro-life Texas resident myself. I consider myself pro-life, however, I do not believe in legislating from afar whether a woman can take command of her own body or whether she must surrender her reproductive rights because some lawmaker in Austin forces her to do so.

Rep. Money is taking the seat once held by another right-wing extremist, Bryan Slaton, who was drummed out of the House because he got a female legislative staffer drunk as a skunk before having sex with her.

I am going out on a limb here, but I do not believe most Texans adhere to Money’s view that we need to ban all abortion, period.

There in could lie Texas lawmakers’ huge “challenge” as they prepare to convene their next session this week.

May the force of common sense and compassion be with all of them.

State news

Texas politics: work in progress

I get asked fairly frequently how I like living in Texas, given that I am not a native Texan, but one who has lived here for most of my life.

The question usually is steeped in politics, in that the state has gone through a dramatic transformation over the past 40 or so years from being strongly Democratic to even stronger Republican.

My answer seeks to split the difference. “My wife and I carved out a wonderful life in Texas when we moved here in 1984,” I usually say. “Our sons came of age here, I had a wonderful career in journalism, and we got to travel,” I often add.

Oh, but what about the wacky political climate? the questioner might ask. “It hasn’t affected me directly,” I would say.

The state of politics in Texas at this moment clearly isn’t what I would prefer. The Republican stranglehold on every elected statewide office is a grim reminder — to me, at least — that progressive politics is being pushed aside.

I get asked about the state’s grotesque anti-abortion law. No one in my immediate family at this moment is a candidate for that kind of decision. I would dread having to deal with such a family crisis were one to arise, but at this time the issue remains a purely political matter.

I am a sort of spectator these days as the state grapples with how to strengthen the GOP vise-grip on public policy. I am able to comment on these matters using this blog. I grow frustrated at times believing that no one in power takes my critiques seriously. I’ll keep using this forum of mine to pound away when the needs arise.

Therefore, I continue to enjoy my life in Texas. We moved here nearly 41 years ago. I am about to turn 75. That makes me a Texan, even though I cannot plaster a “Native Texan” bumper sticker on my pickup.

But … I do own a truck. That has to count for something.

local news

Sanity rules in Amarillo

Just when you think the world has gone mad and that the MAGA crowd is taking over our way of life … you hear about a Texas city where voters exercised their good judgment and put the brakes on the MAGA juggernaut.

Amarillo, where I once lived and worked, showed the nation how a community should react to zealots. The zealots in the Panhandle community weren’t going to let a city council decision to reject a proposed “sanctuary city for the unborn” ordinance stand. So they gathered enough signatures to put the issue on the Nov. 5 ballot.

Voters then echoed the city council’s decision and rejected the cockamamie idea with 59% of voters saying “no!”

The idea was to prohibit pregnant women from traveling on public streets to drive to a place where could obtain an abortion. It would have empowered people to squeal on individuals they knew were planning such a thing. It would have subjected women and their doctors to criminal prosecution. It was an intrusive measure that could have created untold repercussion throughout the city.

It is an idiotic and totally unenforceable effort to interject government into people’s most intensely personal matters.

I have many friends still in Amarillo, where my wife and I lived for 23 years before we moved to the Metroplex. I, of course, couldn’t vote on that measure. I am just thrilled, though, to know that common sense and compassion ruled the day.

political news

Unity message: MIA

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I tried to listen to Donald Trumpā€™s acceptance speech before the Republican National Convention, but when he kept going on and on with his embellished version of the assassination attempt on his life, I threw in the towel.

Still, I managed to read a good bit of the text of his speech and discovered that he threw out the word ā€œunityā€ many times, but the message he delivered sounded very much like his two previous GOP acceptance speeches.

He talked about wanting to be president for all Americans, not just the portion of us who cling his words. Fine. Good deal. How will he deliver on that promise? He didnā€™t say. I reckon he doesnā€™t know what he would do ā€¦ if anything!

For many Republican presidential primaries dating back to around the 1976 season, abortion has been top-of-mind stuff for GOP delegates. Not this year. Did you notice the absence of any mention of the practice? I did. Itā€™s because Trump and his cult followers know they are on the wrong side of that issue.

Unity is essential for anyone who wants to govern. Itā€™s no different for Donald Trump. His problem, though, is that he has built his political career on the notion of dividing and conquering.

 

 

local news

Sanity grips city council

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How about that? Sanity reared its welcome head in the Texas Panhandle as Amarillo rejected a goofy notion of turning the city into a “sanctuary for the unborn.”

The Amarillo City Council voted against a measure that had many Texans — such as me — worried about how the city would enforce such a nutty notion.

The plan called for the city to prohibit anyone from using public roads and streets to obtain an abortion. It empowered residents to rat on their neighbors and friends who need to end a pregnancy but were denied that right because Texas has all but made the process illegal.

According to the Austin American-Statesman: Councilmember Tom Scherlen expressed concerns over the impact of the proposed anti-abortion ordinance on local companies. He said it may impact those that provide travel for abortion in their insurance plans and could impede economic development as future businesses may avoid relocating to the area if the ordinance was in effect.

Money does talk. In this case it spoke loudly enough to prevent a Texas city from falling victim to governmental idiocy.

local news, national news, religious news

‘No!” on travel ban

Barry Goldwater, I am supremely confident in asserting, is spinning in his grave out yonder in Arizona.

The late Arizona U.S. senator and father of the conservative movement would no doubt be aghast at what might be transpiring in Amarillo, where the city council is preparing to vote on an ordinance that would ban women from using local roads and highways to obtain an abortion out of state.

Goldwater used to preach that conservatism, as he understood the principle, kept government out of people’s lives. He was particularly leery of religion being used to dictate public policy.

Amarillo is pondering whether to knuckle under to far-right conservatives’ call to ban women from using local rights-of-way to obtain an abortion. Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley said he doesn’t believe the council will approve the ordinance, which is being brought to the council on the strength of petitions circulated throughout the city.

The city has validated enough signatures to call for a vote, the Texas Tribune has reported.

What now?

If the council rejects the ban the issue, then it can go to voters for a citywide referendum, as I read the Tribune story. That would give the anti-abortion fanatics room to persuade most Amarillo voters to endorse the ban.

Again, Barry Goldwater would come unglued at the notion.

The Tribune reports: The original ordinance supporters want to see passed in the city does not call for pregnant women to be punished for having an abortion out of state. However, anti-abortion legal crusader Jonathan Mitchell hasĀ filedĀ legal petitions seeking to depose women he claims traveled out of state for abortions. Mitchell is working with anti-abortion activists pushing the travel ban on a municipal level.

The proposed policy makes anyone who ā€œaids and abetā€ the procedure vulnerable to a private lawsuit from other citizens. The enforcement is similar toĀ Senate Bill 8, the Texas bill that banned almost all abortions in 2021, prior to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. This is the only enforcement mechanism for the ordinance, which some council members haveĀ criticizedĀ as creating a system for neighbors to turn on each other to collect reward money.

Amarillo City Council must vote on abortion travel ban | The Texas Tribune

Limited government conservatism has given way to all-hands-on-deck conservatism … as long as the issue reflects a certain religious principle. Come to think of it, the nation’s founders would be appalled as well.

national news, political news

So many issues …

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So many issues from which to choose that will define this upcoming presidential election … so little time to decide which one matters the most.

If you were to ask me the one issue that resonates the most clearly with voters, I would go with “reproductive rights.”

Call it “abortion rights” as well. Whichever term you prefer, I believe this single issue could help decide who wins the presidential election. At least as importantly, may be more so, it could decide which party controls Congress. Democrats at this moment hold a slim majority of Senate seats; Republicans, meanwhile, hold an equally slim majority in the House of Representatives.

You know my preference, but I’ll repeat it here: I want Democrats to tighten their Senate grip and want Democrats to wrest control of the House from the GOP.

Republicans are hellbent to make abortion illegal nationwide. They would deprive women the right to make this profoundly personal choice on their own. The 45th POTUS managed to get three Supreme Court justices seated in his term in office.

He is taking personal credit for “killing” Roe v. Wade. Let us hope the boast bites him in his overfed backside as he seeks the presidency yet again.

Abortion is far from the only linchpin issue that could swing this election. We also have democracy vs. autocracy, support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and the ongoing crisis on our southern border.

The fight over whether women should control their own bodies, though, resonates with me as the one issue that could propel women to vote en masse to protect those rights against the mostly male governing bodies wanting to dictate to them.

medical news, national news, political news

Ex-POTUS now opposes national abortion ban … oh, really?

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POTUS No. 45 has just declared his opposition to a national ban on abortion, saying that states should have the final say on what happens within their borders.

What in the world are we to glean from the presumed Republican Party presidential nominee’s latest stance on abortion?

Let’s review for a moment this moron’s path through the abortion pea patch.

He once declared himself to be fully pro-choice on the issue. Then he ran for president in 2016 and promised to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that inscribed a woman’s right to choose as a civil liberty. He kept that promise, with three judges named to the high court during his single — and hopefully only — presidential term. Republican senators declared their intention to enact a national ban, the former POTUS was silent. Now he says it’s up to the states.

While making that declaration, the former Idiot in Chief has boasted about “single-handedly overturning Roe v. Wade.”

Where does this clown stand on the issue? Don’t answer that. I think I know. He doesn’t stand anywhere on it.

He has no view. He has no policy.

local news, national news, political news

Pro-life, pro-choice: not mutually exclusive

Shall we now commence a brief discussion on what I believe could become the determining issue of the 2024 election?

It’s called euphemistically “reproductive rights.” Women across this land are angry that their rights have been stripped away by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that effectively ended a 50-year landmark court ruling that granted women the right under the Constitution to end a pregnancy.

Yes, to get an abortion!

Republicans by and large line up in favor of the SCOTUS ruling; Democrats oppose it.

Where am I on this matter? No surprise to know that I favor allowing women the right to determine a matter that is deeply personal. Politicians — most of whom are men — have no business making that determination for them.

Am I pro-choice? Yes! Am I pro-life? Yes!

Am I a hypocrite for affirming both views? No!

As a red-blooded American male, I am in no position to determine whether a woman should obtain an abortion. I have no standing on that matter. Zero. None.

Neither, in my view, does any other human being.

To be clear, no woman ever has asked me whether she should get an abortion. For that fact I am eternally grateful. I pray to God Almighty I never will have to answer that inquiry. That doesn’t mean for one instant that I would counsel a woman to do something I consider to be an act of immense cruelty.

I live in a state, Texas, that has enacted a strict anti-abortion law; the Legislature acted in the wake of the SCOTUS decision. Texas legislators placed a six-week time limit on women; six weeks after conception, abortion is determined to be illegal. The law makes no exception for the health of the mother, let alone for the health and life of the unborn child. It also subjects women and their physician to criminal penalty if they proceed with an abortion.

Is that what you call a pro-life stance? Hell no! It is a pro-birth stance.

This matter is quickly becoming a major campaign issue in the race for U.S. Senate. Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz favors the idiotic law; his two main Democratic opponents, state Sen. Roland Guiterrez and U.S. Rep. Colin Allred oppose it.

I will venture to suggest that neither of these two Democratic pols would advise an abortion any more than I would. The religious right, though, will sling arrows at the individual nominated on Tuesday to run against Cruz.

This issue is fundamental to women across the state and the nation. I stand with them — and against the fanatics on the right — in this important battle for personal liberty.

I stand with them proudly as a Texas resident who is both pro-choice and pro-life.

local news, medical news

Amarillo wants to govern traffic to fight abortion?

Amarillo’s five-member — and all-male — city council has me scratching my noggin over a highly dubious law it is considering for approval.

Let’s see how this works. The city is considering a ban on people using public roadways if they intend to travel through the city to obtain an abortion.

This prompts what — to me, at least — is an obvious question: How in the name of Big Brother does the city enforce such a law?

Amarillo, where I lived for 23 years before my wife and I relocated to the D/FW Metroplex, is the largest Texas city to ponder such a screwball idea. The city is getting plenty of pushback on it and the council so far is unable to make a decision.

This week, the council conducted a special meeting at the civic center to accommodate the crowd attending, but it didn’t allow any public comment.

This notion is being pushed by those on the far right who oppose abortion to the extent that they want to make it illegal for a woman to obtain one. The Amarillo City Council is considering whether to weigh in on it.

I am shaking my head over this goofy notion. I want to stipulate that the council contains not a single woman. These all are men making a decision that involves whether a woman can control her body.

I’ll get back to my point, which is that such a law is unenforceable! How do police track the traffic? How does anyone determine whether an occupant in the vehicle is heading for an out-of-state medical clinic to obtain an abortion?

And aren’t the right-wingers of this world opposed to big government, that they oppose the Big Brother imposing his will on the people? Oh, wait. I almost forgot! Their anti-Big Brother posture applies only to those issues that don’t get ’em all riled up.

This is about the slipperiest slope I have ever seen … ever!