F**K TEXAS!

 

Texas’ medieval anti-abortion law won’t stand. That’s my silver-lining prediction.

The law, which if you’re reading this you already know its particulars, is so draconian, so cruel, so anti-democratic that it cannot stand. Not in a country where justice and human rights matter. The law will eventually reach the Supreme Court, to be decided on its merits. Notwithstanding a couple of conservative assholes led by Justice Thomas, I don’t believe a majority will uphold Texas’ overreach.

Maybe Kavanaugh will switch? I don’t know. I just don’t see how such a piece of garbage can stand. You gotta hand it Texas – this is as BIG as legal horseshit gets.

Texans have been trying for years to strip rights from women (just as they are trying to strip voting rights from Democrats of the state). They think they finally found a way. Texas has deputized all its anti-abortion lunatics, while offering a cash bounty on the head (or uterus) of anyone who gets or abets an abortion (beyond six weeks pregnancy). You sue and win – you get at least $10,000, plus costs. You lose? You just walk away to try again.

I’ve never been a fan of Texas. However, this law seems about as un-Texan as that state’s braggarts boast. You know. Wide-open spaces. Rugged individualism. Don’t mess with Texas. Zoning? We don’t need no stinking zoning!

I know, I know. Texas is full of fine people, proud of their state, who think the Republicans in Austin, and some of the laws they pass, are nuts. They cry that such laws are not their fault; most in Texas accept abortion as legal and necessary. Yet somehow, this puffed-up place keeps setting the pace in the race for the worst laws in the country. How about we all just acknowledge that Texas is a hopeless, regressive backwater and be done with it?

Prior to this abortion shutdown, a waitress took time off work and drove 300 miles to McAllen, her closest abortion provider, along with her two kids. Because Texas requires two visits, she had to stay overnight. They slept in her car. She paid for her abortion with ones and fives from her tips.

As hard as that was, what would such a woman do today? I wonder about any young girl who last week finally had reached the agonizing decision to end her pregnancy. She got advice from everyone who knew her plight. She talked about it with God. She cried buckets. But for all kinds of reasons I might not understand, she made her decision. Then, after all that, she now learns that she is past a magic date decided by a bunch of mostly white men in Austin. They decided that she will be having a baby, after all. What are the chances of that being a good thing? What are the chances of that baby, literally unwanted by its mother, having a happy life? What will happen to that girl?

I acknowledge that my record in political prognostication is dismal. I freely admit it was beyond my capacity to understand how Trump could get elected. In no way can I explain to myself the miasma of lunacy adrift in our land. I can’t understand anti-vaxxers or the Jan. 6 insurrection. So what do I know? Maybe believing that the Texas law won’t last is just wishful thinking.

Here’s one prediction I know absolutely will come true. On Sunday morning, the pulpits of Evangelical churches, in Texas and across the country, will thunder with sanctimony and thanks to God for delivering this victory. Some might even acknowledge how tough it has been to root for a lying, womanizing grifter in the White House in order to get their anti-abortion judges appointed. But the Lord works in mysterious ways, so thank you Jesus! The wisdom of our moral bargain with that evil man has been vindicated.

We’ll see about that. And we’ll see what happens to this awful Texas law. But in the meantime, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Fuck Texas!