The Amazingly Restrictive Abortion Bill Has Tentatively Passed So A Mess Of Dudes Can Be In Charge Of Your Texas Vagina

BOyGMPCCIAAZKzOGee, I sure do hope you don’t get raped or have your life put in danger due to pregnancy or find yourself with an unwanted pregnancy in Texas because if you do, it’s going to be pretty much impossible for you to get a safe and legal abortion in this state where an estimated 130,000 women are already living without basic healthcare. The Texas House of Representatives tentatively approved a measure yesterday where new restrictions were placed on abortion, basically paving the way for this legislation to become law. What this means is that abortion clinics will be mandated to become ambulatory surgical centers (all but five clinics will close), abortion will be banned past 20 weeks of gestation, and doctors who perform abortions will be required  to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their clinic. Oh, and there will be a lot tighter regulation on the RU486 drug. It’s a pretty shitty time to be a woman in Texas. Even the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is against this, stating that:

These proposed requirements, concerning door width and other irrelevant issues, would only make it extremely difficult or impossible for most clinics, including clinics that primarily provide important non-abortion well-woman health care services such as mammograms and prenatal care to low-income women, to stay open,” the ACOG letter went on.

Women do not need or want any government to make medical decisions for them. Women must have access to all needed health care from mammograms to prenatal visits to reproductive care based on scientific facts, not political ideology.”

 

But, you know, who cares what medical professionals think about all of this?

Our beloved Wendy Davis had a feeling this was going to happen, and from CNN :

On Tuesday, Davis conceded to CNN the abortion legislation was likely to pass this time around.

“It will be very difficult because unfortunately the voices that have been here crying out against this bill are not going to be heard,” Davis told CNN National Political Correspondent Jim Acosta in a brief interview.

“But I don’t think it’s the end. It’s the beginning of a battle line,” she added.

A final, formal vote is scheduled for today and then it will go on to the senate where the Republican majority is also expected to approve the bill. From The Washington Post:

Women from both parties who support abortion rights introduced a series of amendments to water down House Bill 2, hanging coat hangers on the front podium to symbolize illegal abortions, which they say will become more common if the law is enacted. Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, called for an exception to the 20-week ban in cases of rape and incest, but Laubenberg rejected the proposal.

 

Laubenberg probably rejected this proposal because she still thinks rape kits cause abortions so women can just mosey on down to a hospital and get one of those. All of us can get real excited because our good friend Rick Santorum is expected to hold a news conference at the Texas state capitol in Austin on Thursday.

If this is making you as depressed as it is making me, watch this amazingly clever and hilarious SchoolHouse Rock update which happily explains the bill:
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(Image: twitter)

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