Dystopia
This past week has been a difficult one and that is particularly in Texas. Kate Cox was a normal Texan with two children and she and her husband were hoping for a third. 20 weeks into the pregnancy something horrible happened. They were given the kind of diagnosis that no one wants to hear. Their baby was no longer viable and it would threaten her life if it were brought to term.
The Texas law prevents abortions that late into the pregnancy. Cox asked for an exception since the baby was not viable, her health would be in danger, and performing the procedure now would preserve her ability to have children in the future. The district court heard the evidence and granted the exception.
Ken Paxton in his own special way filed an immediate appeal and threatened to have anyone that assisted her prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The Texas Supreme Court dragged their feet so Cox travelled to an unknown state and had the procedure done. Just to be thorough, the Texas Supreme Court then ruled that the district court’s ruling was null and void. There will be no exceptions.
As a cradle Catholic, I am really torn on this one. I tend to be against abortion in most instances. The key term is most. If the baby can be had safely and the baby is viable I much prefer adoption over abortion. However, I have to acknowledge two very important distinctions. The first is that all pregnancies are different and come with their own challenges. In Cox’s case, she wanted the baby, but that was no longer a legitimate possibility and the outcome was going to be crushing if not deadly.
Doctors and families are the ones that should make these calls. Is the mother’s life in danger? Is the baby in danger? Is this a case of the child having a abnormality that would impact its quality of life or will the child literally die shortly after birth? The fact is that no one carries a child to that point and chooses to have an abortion because the child is an inconvenience.
The second consideration is that abortion is a personal choice. I would never choose to have an abortion unless my life or the life of the baby were in danger. I will never be pregnant. It’s not my choice. If we believe in free will then we also believe that people ultimately have the choice to make decisions that we might think are bad ones. We may disagree with the choice.
In Cox’s case, that question is moot. The child wasn’t going to survive. So, what are we doing exactly? Why is Paxton being such a jackass? This was never about Cox. She had the means to go elsewhere to take care of her procedure. I think if you shot them up with truth serum they would admit that the law really wasn’t about her or women like her.
It was a signal to women in general. We have control over you. We control your reproductive health, your health in general, and your future. We make all of these choices for you because we can’t trust to make them on your own. It was a signal to everyone else that your situation doesn’t matter. You had your opportunity and you didn’t take it. The idea of prosecuting doctors for performing live saving care is beyond repugnant. You almost want to paint one of those curly mustaches on Paxton to complete the illusion that he is a megalomaniacal villain chortling in the background. We can do better Texas. We have to do better.
Nick Carraway, in order to prevail the so-called “pro-lifers” count on you to be against most abortions.
The fact is that unless a child is born to at least one parent who sacrifices their other hopes and ambitions to nurture a real human being to adulthood, that child is very likely to suffer an outcome worse than abortion– one that will ruin or destroy not only the life of the child but of one or more of those around him/her.
I’d put my tale of “The Baby Store” here, but it’s extremely long. Here’s an excerpt of what happens as parents come out with their new babies:
“Every eighteen seconds a child is born who for most of his life will barely, if at all, know his biological father
1Every 27 seconds, a baby is born whose parents never intended for him to exist
Every thirty-six seconds, a baby is born who will not graduate high school
Every thirty-six seconds, a child is born to a life without health insurance
Every thirty-six seconds, a baby is born who will live in a family with an alcoholic parent
Every forty-five seconds a child will be born to live in poverty
Every sixty-three seconds a child is born who will be left alone at home unsupervised between the ages of five and fourteen [think: teen pregnancies, etc.]”
Funny how the Catholic Church did not have an official position on abortion until 1869.
2You may not have a choice but you have an opinion. Yeah, everybody’s got one. But “Doctors and families are the ones that should make these calls.” is wrong. The Woman whose body it is is the one with the critical choice–the one that is being denied to her.
3Nick, calling paxton a jackass is, just, no.
I’m purty certain I, and you could come up with dozens of more appropriate descriptors.
But you were busy making a point I mostly agree with.
So lemme give it a shot.
The fucker’s campaigning.
To be the U.S. Attorney General if trump wins.
4I agree except for one thing. It isn’t that he can’t trust women to make the choice. It’s that he won’t, come hell or high water, give up any control over women that he can exert.
And now the Extreme Court is going to take on the case against abortion pills? This is not going to end well for Republicans next November. It can’t get here soon enough!
5First off, how are those 9,000+ rape kits doing? Still sitting on a shelf and perps walking free? And schools – are we still #43 in the nation and have we fallen further? Next what doctor would do anything to jeopardize years of schooling, a job and possible prison? None that I know of. We are back in an era where it’s always a woman’s fault and she and any children must be punished severely!
6Ann,
Point well taken. Family can be misconstrued. In this instance, I was thinking of Ms. Cox and her husband but as others have pointed out, the father is often not involved and the family label can be extended to people that probably shouldn’t be involved. Suffice it to say, Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, and Paxton aren’t family.
P.P.
The rough draft contained other names, but I know momma wouldn’t want me using those words. So, jackass will have to do while everything is in print. In the spoken word there are much more colorful adjectives we can use.
7I hope to God no one blabs where she has gone to and, further, I hope her and her family move out of Texas!
8Perhaps you would like to read this.
https://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378(22)00536-1/fulltext
Or this
https://www.axios.com/local/dallas/2023/07/24/maternal-mortality-in-texas
9https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/16/1163786037/maternal-deaths-in-the-u-s-spiked-in-2021-cdc-reports#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20rate%20for%202021,deaths%20per%20100%2C000%20in%202020.
cgregory @ 1,
I was born the child of #27 sec. – my mother was 43, I was never wanted.
I was the child born to an alcoholic father and a seriously mentally disturbed mother.
I was the child born into extreme poverty of my mother’s creation.
I was the feral child left to fend for myself.
Children should be wanted, loved and cared for. No one should be forced to have children they don’t want.
10I often see the abortion issue tied in with religious beliefs. As in “Thou shalt not kill.” But most religions are not consistent on this point. They allow for the death penalty of criminals, war against enemies, etc. So why are they seemingly incapable of being consistent? Why not:
* No killing, without exception
* Some killing is deemed necessary, in war, for criminal punishment, in some pregnancies (if religious believers insist on calling it killing)
Otherwise, there’s separation of church and state. Religions can make their rules about abortion for their parishioners. They won’t even let non-members take communion, or deny other aspects of their belief system to non-members, so why not deny their beliefs on abortion to non-members? Again, the hobgoblin of consistency, or in this case inconsistency.
11It’s important to remember that Paxton couldn’t have done this without the support of the Southern Baptist church. They have stood by him throughout affair(s), corruption, and a hateful agenda. Ed Young (2nd Baptist – Houston) and others of his kind are guilty of murder.
12Papa–
My point exactly. People raised (or mis-raised) like Ted Bundy, Dylan Roof, et al., never had the inner resources you had. But the so-called “pro-lifers” don’t pay the costs incurred.
13Sam in Mellen @ 12
Kinky Friedman — ‘The only thing wrong with Southern Baptists was they didn’t hold them underwater long enough.’
14My story (which I have never told) offers scant comfort to either side.
While carrying me and my brother, Jude (about whom more later), Mom got chicken pox, which somehow she had avoided in childhood. It was rough.
Her doctor recommended abortion, based on a study just published in Germany which said fetal complications from chicken pox produced mentally retarded children.
Mom’s situation was unpleasant, though not as desperate as for some. My father was incommunicado on a destroyer somewhere in the Caribbean, and housing was a problem. (Mom and her mother ended up living in the family’s summer cabin, which was not suitable for what turned out to be the coldest winter in decades.)
Abortions were illegal in 1946, but my mother’s family had enough money and status to have carried it off secretly.
Though Mom never said so, I believe she resented to the end of her life (which came last year) that Dad was not around to help her.
She was Catholic, so it was a given that she would carry the babies, but the anxiety was intense.
Eventually, I came out, normal for most purposes; but Jude was stillborn. Possibly strangled by the cord. The doctor — an ancient family friend and no gynecologist but all that was available with all the young, modern doctors in uniform — had mismanaged the pregnancy, which lasted 10 days beyond the usual term, with Jude dead in the womb for some time.
My mother was still grieving for Jude 76 years later.
I take no position on the general question. To my mother’s great sorrow, I grew to detest the Catholic religion, which seems ungrateful of me. But if she had been Southern Baptist I wouldn’t be typing this.
Anyhow, when I was being considered for a commission 20 years later, one of the questions was: Did you experience a difficult birth? Yeah, you could say so.
15If forced to define my views I’d say I’m Pro-Choice. I’m pro choice in the strictest definition of the term. I believe that people should have the freedom to govern their bodies how they see fit. I think abortion is the wrong choice in a lot of instances but it’s not my choice. The Catholic Church is against the death penalty and wars of choice. So, they are fairly consistent. Still, we aren’t a Catholic nation and even if we were it would be impossible, impractical, and short-sighted to take everything labeled as sin and make it illegal and enforceable with jail time or worse.
This is between a woman, the father if he is involved and supportive, and her doctor. To put it more simply, she involves who she wants to in the decision making process. Usually that would be the father but every situation is different. I don’t know anyone that loves abortions. If we really want to involve God then that would be up to the mother.
16Nick, what has *religion* to do with it ? Ken Paxton wanted the money from the Catholic Pedophile *Church* for the baby – as do ALL Red State Govs .
17Nick. you don’t know anyone who loves abortion? Listen more closely. Although the movement has toned down a bit, t was not so long ago when abortion was treated as something pretty close to a bonding mechanism.
18Generally I try not to comment on this issue very much, being an older middle age white man. But I do have two daughters. A couple observations, all obvious.
We all know how hypocritical the anti-choice movement is.
How many times has anyone heard somebody say that the father has as much of a say in that choice? Even though he’s in no physical danger of any consequences of that choice.
And how the right wingers scoff when that’s pointed out.
“It’s just as hard on the father” Although the only justifications I’ve ever heard about that last one are the most ludicrous gaslighting.
And how many times have we heard that if the mother doesn’t want the baby, there’s always good folks trying to adopt?
So what the hell, I’m gonna suggest something ludicrously radical.
Cause no matter how much the excuses for what’s being done now is a matter of common sense tradition to a lot of folks, they’re no less radical in reality.
So here’s my suggestion.
Any time a woman dies as the result of being denied life saving care by the state she’s had to support with her taxes like everyone else……….
The father dies too.
I don’t care if it’s the gas chamber, needle, or firing squad.
The State kills one they gotta kill the other.
They’ve got other kids?
Bummer for them.
There’s always plenty of good folks trying to adopt.
We could call it the Goosey Gander requirement.
I realize there’s a fair chance I’ve heard something like this before and am inadvertently plagiarizing, so apologies in advance to anybody who’s floated this before.
19I’m not that original.
Anyhoo, as always that’s just my opinion and I’m just as full of shit as anybody else.
It occurs to me to look at this from the other side.
There are plenty of “pro-life” women. (I put “pro-life” in quotes, because it’s really pro-birth-and-F-U-once-you’re-here, but I digress).
I have to wonder if any one of those women found herself in a situation like Kate Cox at any time since Roe was decided in 1973 until Dobbs. Did any of these women decide to carry a non-viable pregnancy to either miscarriage or term? If miscarriage, how did they handle the “remains?”
I would think such a woman would be “out loud and proud” about it, and we would have heard of many who chose the “noble cause.”
That we didn’t hear about such heroic nobility leads me to believe the “pro-life” movement is comprised of hypocrites and misogynists.
That, and the fact that, when I was a clinic escort, several patients showed up in cars with anti-abortion bumper stickers.
Hypocrisy is not, unfortunately, a disqualification for joining a group.
20Sam in Mellen @12, Perhaps the worst of this breed is the ‘Rev.’ Robert Jeffress, CEO of Dallas First Baptist megachurch.
I recently saw a clip of him praising trump, paxton, abbott, etc., and urging his braindead followers to vote for them [watch some of his sermons online, chilling].
These SOBs are a clear and present danger to the United States [and world], wield enormous power, and we must stop all of them in November 2024.
Or the USA will become a Theo-Fascist hellhole within months of a Republikan victory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jeffress
“Robert James Jeffress Jr. (born November 29, 1955) is an American Southern Baptist pastor, author, radio host, and televangelist. He is the senior pastor of the 14,000-member[2][dead link] First Baptist Church, a megachurch in Dallas, Texas,[3] and is a Fox News Contributor.[4] His sermons are broadcast on the television and radio program Pathway to Victory, which is broadcast on more than 1,200 television stations in the United States and 28 other countries, and is heard on 900 stations and broadcast live in 195 countries.[5][6]
Jeffress has frequently engaged in political activity, in sermons and on national news. He has endorsed Republican candidates for president, including Donald Trump, and has spoken at Republican conventions. He has also been critical of Democratic politicians, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The extent of this activity has been controversial. “
21Harry, speaking for myself, thanks for telling that story, and choosing us as the folks to it tell to.
22I sure as hell can’t say I know how you feel.
No one can. But I can try to emphasize.
And I have to say as someone raised in a Southern Baptist church that kinda like what Brother Sandridge is pointing out, if you
And more on topic: My ex, a devout Catholic Hispanic, and former Democratic delegate, is HOPPING MAD about AG Paxton and all the rest of the Rethugs [not that she didn’t despise Rs before].
I don’t think that I’ve ever seen her that pissed before. She gets mad at me for using profanity, she was swearing a blue streak.
She’s not an abortion advocate, but was really ticked about the misogynistic “control” aspects of these Rethug mofos.
[When I might get critical about Catholic issues, she’s pointed out that she knows many clergy who are quite liberal, contrary to general perceptions; and she is/was very well connected, I used to joke about her having the Pope’s private telephone number..]
23had been raised Southern Baptist instead of Catholic, you’d just have different issues.
24I don’t always agree with you.
I don’t ALWAYS agree with anyone, not even in this joint.
IMHO that’s one of the things that makes this place great.
For the most part we can talk, disagree, and still talk.
Finding what common ground there is, which is usually based on morality.
Crap, sorry I just saw that when I accidentally submitted and took my time finishing it split everything up.
I blame it on Sandridge 😉
25No, you folks are great people. Even if I get heated I know that everyone’s comments come from a generally good place where they are trying to speak truth as they see it. I only bring faith into the discussion because the opposition does. So, my comments on faith almost have the feel of a secret double agent behind enemy lines or a Rosetta stone for those not from that particular tradition.
My general sense is that religion is there for people that find comfort and direction from it. If it helps you to be a better person and it helps you to feel better about the world around you than it is generally a good thing. If it doesn’t then it is time to reevaluate either yourself or what your faith is telling you. As others have said, if you are against abortion then don’t get one. Urge you friends and family not to get one. The dividing line should really end there. I don’t go to these clinics to boisterously give them my opinions. My opinions aren’t relevant to them. It is a difficult choice and it is made more difficult the more people get involved.
26RE: 20 Yes, once birth happens, the R line is “you are on your own, kid.”
Consider, though, one larger consequence of the Paxtonization in the gop:
“Biden message in 2024: high employment, booming stock market, three interest rate cuts ahead.
Trump message 2024: even if the baby in your womb is literally dead, you still must seek your state government’s permission to remove it from your body.”
From David Frum’s article “The Coming Biden Blowout” about how Rs are about to experience an electoral disaster in 2024.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/gop-republicans-2024-election-biden-trump/673856/
27Wow, I’ve really gotta start paying attention to time stamps.
28Harry, bonding mechanism?
Your head’s up your ass.
But then I don’t really think that’s what you meant.
You’re a a journalist.
A writer.
You’re chain yanking.
Stop it or go somewhere else to do it.
P.P. @25, Go ahead Brer P.P., everybody else does ;] .
G Foresight @27, Biden’s stellar performance is shaded and buried by the MSM every chance they get.
Joe’s administration and the whole effing Democratic Party are going to have to very effectively counter all that bullshit just to have a fighting chance in November.
[re: Atlantic article– is there a link that isn’t restricted to just a few lines before requiring a signup? probably a good read from a prominent Rethug, but out of reach..]
Just look at various polls, how the hell trump and Co. could be actually leading in some, and with generally pessimistic public views on all the major topics, is just effing nutz.
29But it’s the end result of years of media distortions and propaganda, Rethug lying and BS, and a world leading citizenship stupidity quotient.
As is often said–with reason–about Republicans like Ken Paxton, in the very blue state where I live, “The cruelty is the point.”
30Obviously from all the above comments, how one feels about abortion is a personal matter but the ones that count are the women who have make the difficult choice to seek an abortion. As with everything repugnantican, it’s about all about getting the vote and constant campaigning. The loathsome, repulsive threesome of Paxton, Abbot and Patrick consider Kate Cox collateral damage of their politics. She won’t be the last looking at the red states thaare trying to one up other states to criminalize what should be a woman’s choice and those that choose to help them. The jackasses are all over red America.
31Red States decry abortion because they want the money from the Catholic Pedophile *Church* for the babies .
32RE Sandridge 29: That “can’t access the full article” roadblock reminds me of what a media critic basically said: “Hate and lies are all free and easily viewable on the Internet but facts and reasoned discussions are locked behind a paywall. Guess which messages spread more and faster.”
Try this link:
https://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=david+frum++Coming+Biden+Blowout&d=4762023848590975&mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US&w=47dwNrHl8Nd1hLnsa8CgE-4ZNbV0bAz9
33P.P #28,
I noticed that too and decided to let it go. My statement stands, I don’t know (or met) anyone that is gung ho, yay abortion. I suppose they theoretically exist but I seriously doubt there are very many.
34My thoughts are very similar to all of the last 34. What I don’t see as often is how it came to be that the governing bodies have more control over what I do with my body or how they are considered to be the final decision makers over my health over and above my doctors. When I hear lawmakers that aren’t doctors making laws about medical decisions or medicines I want to scream, STOP! you don’t know what you’re talking about. Not that it would be heard above the cha ching of the PAC money.
35I can’t remember how many times I heard, My Body My Choice over whether or not some should have the covid vaccine, a decision that did affect others. But now we’re back to, Your Body not your Choice. Honestly, what would be the hullabaloo
if you didn’t know me and never knew that I was ever pregnant? And why should I value your opinion over whether or not I should carry a baby to term? You want to carry them I say all the power to you. Just don’t tell me that I have to do what you want because you’re feeding me the guilt you carry.
Momma was right a long time ago when she insisted that a woman’s body was not a property of the state. Me? Well, I declare that all this hoopla over women’s reproductive health is actually just a warm up by the “pro lifers” to throw the hammer down on what men can do with their bodies. No contraceptives, no vasectomies, etc. When both sexes are controlled via reproduction, then comes the real hammer: no voting. The state is everythiing and those who have no control over anything in their lives are done for.
36What YOU PREFER as a man in regards to a woman who is not in your family is meaningless. It’s not your body.
37“Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.
38A pregnant woman is at risk every day of that pregnancy.
The life and health of the MOTHER should be the priority.
That is what Pro-Life should mean and what is being denied to women in repugnicant controlled states. It is a matter of human rights, not politics, not religion.