“The louder they scream, the more we know that we are getting something done.”
by digby
TEXAS GOVERNOR RICK PERRY: “In fact, even the woman who filibustered the Senate the other day was born into difficult circumstances. She was the daughter of as single woman, she was a teenage mother herself. She managed to eventually graduate from Harvard Law School and serve in the Texas senate. It is just unfortunate that she hasn’t learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential and that every life matters.”
It really takes some brass for this privileged jackass to not only tell women what they can do with their own bodies but also lecture them on the lessons they should take from their own life experience. We’re not even allowed to have that, I guess.
But that’s not even the worst of it:
During his remarks, the Texas governor also described Davis’ filibuster as “hijacking of the Democratic process” and said of the pro-choice movement, “the louder they scream, the more we know that we are getting something done.”
On Tuesday, anti-abortion Republicans in the state added yet another budget provision related to reproductive health. The new amendment would require doctors to look for a fetal heartbeat before performing an abortion, presumably with an unnecessary ultrasound procedure, and then “notify the woman about the presence of the heartbeat.” Abortion doctors would also be required to tell women about the fetus’ likelihood of “surviving to full term.”
[…]
They’ve found their chance with this budget amendment, which actually seeks to redefine the medical terms of pregnancy under Ohio law. The new provision defines a fetus as “human offspring developing during pregnancy from the moment of conception and includes the embryonic stage of development” and ultimately declares that pregnancy begins at fertilization. The commonly accepted scientific definition of pregnancy, however, is the point at which a fertilized egg becomes implanted in the uterine lining.According to the Guttmacher Institute, changing those scientific definitions goes against decades of precedent in federal law — and could ultimately impact some forms of contraception, like the morning after pill. Emergency contraception is not actually an abortion because it doesn’t prevent implementation and has no effect on women who are already pregnant. But Ohio’s state law may soon define it that way anyway.
Ohio’s budget bill passed out of committee on Tuesday night, and now heads to full votes in the House and Senate on Thursday. Both chambers are expected to approve it. At this point, Gov. John Kasich (R) is the only lawmaker who will be able to edit the budget bill — and, if he chooses, remove some of the abortion-related provisions. But so far, he hasn’t indicated that he’s willing to make any changes once the legislation lands on his desk.
“I think the legislature has a right to stick things in budgets and put policy in budgets… There’s nothing out of the ordinary here in the way in which they’ve decided this,” Kasich said on Wednesday when asked about the fetal heartbeat provision. He said he would make a decision about the bill when it gets closer to the July 1 deadline for its passage. “I’ll look at the language, keeping in mind that I’m pro-life,” the governor added.
The right to abortion has been acknowledged for 40 years now. That they are still pulling this crap a full generation later proves that no matter how much you think your rights are secured, these people will be trying to roll them back. After all, just this week the US Supreme Court struck down the Voting Rights Act at a time of systematic vote suppression.
It’s good to celebrate our progress. But nobody should be complacent.
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