Life’s a beach, ladies
Some guy seems not to have noticed that Taylor Swift’s hottest concert ticket of the year made her Time‘s Person of the Year. Or that Barbie was the hottest movie ticket of the year. Barbie ends with joke about women’s health care. It figures some clueless guy‘s name is Ken.
Alexandra Petri noticed (Washington Post, gifted):
“Judge Guerra Gamble is not medically qualified to make this determination and it should not be relied upon. A TRO is no substitute for medical judgment.”
— Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, writing to doctors who have received a court order allowing an abortion to end a nonviable pregnancy
There is no substitute for medical judgment, except the judgment of me, Ken Paxton.
Am I a doctor? No. I’m something better than a doctor: a Ken. My accessories include: no medical expertise and a boundless reservoir of cruelty. And one time, I saw a horse. I have also been told that my handwriting is bad and that I am not patient. This all screams “doctor” to me.
Move over Karen. Ken is here. Because when Just Ken found out the patriarchy wasn’t just about horses, he lost interest, picked up his clicky pen, and began writing letters restricting Texas women’s health care.
“Oh, and doctors? Cross me and I’ll prosecute,” says Retribution Now, Retribution Tomorrow, Retribution Forever Ken. (Sadly, not a limited edition.)
“This seems like a horrible, ghoulish way to behave when a person needs to access emergency medical care,” you might say. Sure! But we are not talking about a person in this case. We are talking about a woman. Totally different, in my medical opinion.
Life’s a beach, ladies (New York Times):
The Texas Supreme Court late Friday temporarily halted a lower court order allowing a Dallas woman to obtain an abortion in spite of the state’s strict bans, after she learned her fetus has a fatal condition.
The state court’s ruling was in response to an appeal from Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, who opposed the woman’s abortion.
Ruth Marcus (also from the Post) finds less humor in Just Ken’s un-pink meddling. A supporter of women’s reproductive rights, Marcus is willing to allow that some people on the anti side are motivated by deep moral convictions. But not Just Ken:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is an exception. He deserves no such respect, only condemnation for his unnecessary, inexplicable cruelty. No moral person — no person with true compassion for life — could be launched on Paxton’s current crusade against a Texan named Kate Cox.
Cox is a 31-year-old mother of two, about 20 weeks pregnant with a third, very much wanted. But the fetus has Trisomy 18, a severe genetic disorder. Some 95 percent of such pregnancies do not make it to term or are stillborn. Half of those born with the condition do not survive beyond the first week; 9 out of 10 die within the first year.
This is worse than heartbreaking; it is dangerous to Cox’s health and future fertility. Because she has had two previous Caesarean sections, Cox would have to have a third C-section because of the risk of uterine rupture. A repeat procedure would make it more difficult for her to carry a successful pregnancy in the future. Cox’s doctors have advised her and her husband that abortion would be the safest choice to protect her ability to have more children.
Texas argues that its abortion ban’s language is clear. Crystal.
“With allowing reasonable medical judgment, you avoid the possibility of getting it wrong and ending up in prison,” Texas Assistant Attorney General Beth Klusmann assured the court. “As long as your judgment is reasonable, you should be fine under this law.”
Now comes Paxton, Klusmann’s boss, to make clear that is not the state’s position at all. Not only can Cox’s doctor not use her judgment about what’s best for her patient, but she also can’t rely on a court order allowing her to do so. This isn’t regulating abortion — it’s terrorizing those who dare to perform the procedure and endangering the women who need it.
Just Ken thinks that’s much more fun than horses.