Tweet
Written by Andrea Grimes for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
Texas’ Gov. Rick Perry has thrown his support behind a potential 20-week abortion ban in the state, but his office told RH Reality Check that he’ll leave it up to legislators to determine the appropriate punishment for women who get later-term abortions.
How much does Rick Perry hate women? He'll let the legislature decide.
After Perry’s appearance at a Houston crisis pregnancy center last week, RH Reality Check asked his office whether he supported any exceptions to the yet-to-be-proposed law, such as for cases of rape, incest, or the life of the pregnant person. His office’s answer: “those details will be worked out by the Legislature.”
We also wondered: what does Gov. Perry imagine the punishment should be for women who seek abortions after 20 weeks, were Texas to ban such procedures?
His office responded not with the usual anti-choice dithering about punishing doctors instead of abortion-seekers, but with a clear admission that punishment for these women is in order: “That will also be decided by the Legislature.”
What, indeed, might be the appropriate punishment for the southeast Texas single mother of seven children who sought an abortion at 21 weeks? Or the San Antonio woman, 20 weeks pregnant, who’s trying to leave an abusive relationship? Or the college junior from Oklahoma who is picking up extra shifts in hopes of paying for her abortion at 21 weeks?
These are the stories from real people who have contacted the Lilith Fund, a Texas-based non-profit that helps women find funding for safe, legal abortion care. If Texas passes a 20-week abortion ban, Texans like these women — women who are likely to have experienced “multiple disruptive events” in the past year, and who are likely to be victims of domestic violence, according to research conducted by the Guttmacher Institute — would be criminals in the eyes of the state.
Lilith Fund president Amelia Long told RH Reality Check that a 20-week abortion ban “unfairly burdens people that are already experiencing some of the worst problems in their lives.”
Long says it’s not the case that women know they want or need an abortion and are “just putting it off and just being lazy about it,” as Perry and his anti-choice supporters seem to believe. “That is never the case with anyone we talk to.”
Instead, says Long, the Lilith Fund hears from women who are in abusive relationships, or from women who initially had a wanted pregnancy but “then something happens that’s a disaster for them,” making the prospect of pregnancy and parenthood untenable. Long characterized Perry’s position as “not acting with compassion.”
Indeed, how compassionate is it to suggest that an unemployed mother of two, a student looking for waitressing jobs who found herself pregnant at 20 weeks after an unsuccessful medical abortion, should pay a fine or serve jail time?
But that’s Rick Perry’s perspective: women who seek abortions after 20 weeks owe a debt to society that must be paid, somehow. It’ll be up to the Texas legislature to decide just how much these mothers, college students, high schoolers and victims of domestic violence owe.
Written by Andrea Grimes for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
Image by DonkeyHotey released under a Creative Commons license.
16 Comments
I wonder if Perry’s next step will be to study Irish law for his extreme right wing inspiration.
Ireland used to prohibit women from exiting Ireland for the purpose of obtaining an abortion elsewhere which would illegal in Ireland itself (nearly all abortions were outlawed).
Before it was eventually struck down some of the Irish law’s boosters compared it to prohibitions against citizens going overseas to obtain child porn. That is, any law has a long arm and can supposedly reach out across sovereign boundaries.
Next, Perry will come to fear that women will sneak into a neighboring state for the procedure, no? What will he do then?
I don’t know if “sneak” is the right word, but this happens all the time.
Wonder how long it will last once Texans realize that they’ll be on the hook for the medical and educational costs for children with birth defects that women were FORCED to have?
You can’t even get an amniocentesis until your 16th week and the results take a week or two- that doesn’t leave much leeway before hitting the 20th week.
Gonna have to restart the underground railroad. I think there already is one for women fleeing brutal men who won’t give up control. Now, we’ll have to start one for women who desperately need abortions, maybe even smuggling them into another country
I suppose this is all part of Christainity too, isn’t it?
They already have a plan for that being played out in DC now: cut the funding for everyone’s “healthcare”
It’s gonna backfire too. At the end of the day I can’t see folks who were forced to have children who had problems sitting quietly and allowing the state to pretend these children don’t exist.
Politicians may not realize it but eventually there will be a day of reckoning.
I think they know. they are prepared for us
Why would anyone presume there should be punishment?
I agree, “sneak” isn’t the best term, just hyperbole.
It presupposes such a TX prohibition could actually come into force and they tried prosecuting TX women going elsewhere (or even providers elsewhere). It won’t happen, of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Perry tried, just to please his base.
I think they’ve figured out a partial strategy regarding the money. It would be to not expand Medicaid, and encourage all the potential, new, low income participants to move elsewhere for benefits.
That’ll put a crimp in the whole entire having a cheap and available labor force for their corporate masters.
The top of our economic food chain is occupied by idiots though so they may not have considered this.
Hey Rick:
Friendly reminder.
You’re a lowlife, scumbag piece of shit.
That is all.
It is silly and sadistic to think about punishing women who may be concerned about their health……Texan macho nothings…….GOP women voting for this in Texas would be a small demographic of monsters–Texan macho nothings, too.
Happy to contribute to temp housing in N.M., OK, ARK and LA–or whereever for Texas women. Kind of like political asylum–or very much is political asylum. The feds in USA do it for those from other nations. Perhaps they can fund it as long as they fund other political asylum seekers. Texas is basically another nation. Prolly a nation where women are afraid for their safety due to the political atmosphere.
In the movie ‘W’, didn’t W have a little problem that needed to be taken care of–and it was taken care of? So, will only good old boys get permission–more for their social standing and less for a real reason like a woman’s health or well-being?
No brainer: Execution for Attempted murder.
They need to preserve life.
Si senior. “El mayor Estado Unidos Mexicanos”