Rick Perry loses a round:
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked key provisions of Texas’ new law requiring a doctor to perform a sonogram before an abortion, ruling the measure violates the free speech rights of both doctors and patients.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks upheld the requirement that sonograms be performed, but struck down the provisions requiring doctors to describe the images to their patients and requiring women to hear the descriptions.
The law made exceptions for women who were willing to sign statements saying they were pregnant as a result of rape or incest or that their fetus had an irreversible abnormality. Sparks questioned whether the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature was trying to “permanently brand” women who are victims of sexual assault. Sparks wrote that forcing doctors to discuss the results with a patient who may not want to listen “compels physicians to advance an ideological agenda with which they may not agree, regardless of any medical necessity and irrespective of whether the pregnant women wish to listen.”
Sparks was particularly troubled by the requirement that victims of sexual assault or incest sign statements attesting to that fact to get around the provision. That would require women to disclose “extremely personal, medically irrelevant facts” that will be “memorialized in records that are, at best, semi-private,” Sparks wrote.
“(It) is difficult to avoid the troubling conclusion the Texas Legislature either wants to permanently brand women who choose to get abortions, or views these certifications as potential evidence to be used against physicians and women,” Sparks wrote.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican who is running for president, was critical of Tuesday’s ruling. Perry had made the law one of his top priorities for the 2011 legislative session.
GOP front-runner Rick Perry pushed a law that directs a physician to read a script to a woman, and the woman to “hear” the words (whatever that means).
As a reminder, here’s a leading conservative intellectual lecturing us all that laws like this are nothing to worry about, and are simply an attempt to “stroke the egos” of Texas preachers.
Finally, journalists should remember that Republican politicians have usually been far more adept at mobilizing their religious constituents than those constituents have been at claiming any sort of political “dominion.” George W. Bush rallied evangelical voters in 2004 with his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment, and then dropped the gay marriage issue almost completely in his second term. Perry knows how to stroke the egos of Texas preachers, but he was listening to pharmaceutical lobbyists, not religious conservatives, when he signed an executive order mandating S.T.D. vaccinations for Texas teenagers.
Pure politically motivated nonsense, of course. It’s a state law, Rick Perry made it a top priority, and women and physicians in Texas will have to abide by the law, despite the dishonest representations of conservative theorists who repeatedly assure us the religious Right has no real clout in the GOP.
Despite denials by conservatives who are hoping to assuage the fears of moderate voters by lying to them, elections have real-world consequences and laws like this are one of them.
h/t to commenter soonergrunt
Boudica
Thanks, Kay, for posting this. I just read about the decision over at Digby and was hoping some BJer would post his/her take on it here.
kay
@Boudica:
I generally don’t read editorials, and I remember why. This too, is nonsense. Bush and company amended my state constitution in their desperation to drag Bush over the finish line in Ohio. The politically-motivated laws they put on the books in the 2004 election are still there.
“No harm, no foul!” Such a liar.
Donut
Kay, questions for you, since (my understanding is) you do some work in GOTV efforts – do you think the stepped up efforts to restrict women’s reproductive rights can be turned back against the right wing next year? How much effort is going on out there to interest and mobilize female voters for 2012? Seems to me human/civil rights could be a real galvanizing force to increase female voter turnout in battleground states where it will really matter, if done correctly (not that I know how to do it…).
Any links you can share to worthy grass-roots orgs that need money, volunteers, whatever?
EconWatcher
Somewhat OT, but I really have trouble getting my head around the fundie mindset. I just don’t get it.
Recently, I was chatting with a seemingly intelligent and personable middle-aged lady in an airport. She made some remarks that made it obvious she was some kind of religious conservative. I tried to steer the conversation away from that and just discussed the vagaries of flying.
Then she commented to me that she was thankful to the Good Lord, because He knows that she’s afraid of flying, and so He has arranged it so that she’s had good weather and smooth skies whenever she’s had to fly.
I sat there dumbfounded, thinking to myself, “So you believe in a deity that allowed a million Jewish kids to be murdered, but makes sure you have smooth skies whenever you want to fly. Wow.”
Is that it? Is it just a form of pathological narcissism?
Omnes Omnibus
@EconWatcher:
I think that is a big factor.
Ben Cisco
Douthat’s, well, Douthat. Even if he were right, his basic premise (that us heathens shouldn’t be worried about the Gov Goodhairs of the world and their “panacea” laws for the fundies) requires that we believe that 1) the pols are only doing it to get elected to higher office, 2) once elected, they will turn away from such power grabs, and 3) those laws do no harm.
__
I think the word we’re looking for here is CLUELESS (both on the part of the pols AND their supporters).
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Cisco:
A mighty big if.
Splitting Image
@EconWatcher:
“Possessing even the tiniest bit of piety in the body, we should find a god who cures a cold at the right time or who bids us enter a coach at the very moment when a violent rainstorm begins, such an absurd god that we would have to abolish him if he existed. A god as servant, as mailman, as calendar man – at bottom, a word for the most stupid of all accidents. “Divine Providence” of the kind in which approximately every third person in “educated Germany” still believes would be an objection to God so strong that one simply could not imagine a stronger one. And in any case, it is an objection to the Germans!” – Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ 52
In short, yep.
Emma
You made me look at Ross Douthat first t hing in the morning. Now I have to go find the brain bleach and scrub.
And if you don’t think they’re collecting evidence against women and doctors for the next step of their campaigns, I have a bridge for you. Cheap.
Linda Featheringill
@EconWatcher:
and Splitting Image:
“Divine Providence”
It could be that the lady in question was just grateful for her good luck. She could also be quite crazy but this isn’t necessarily so. One can disagree with you and still be relatively sane.
How many people across the face of the earth routinely describe good things with a God-be-praised tag attached? It is so common that it might express something basic about the human species.
satby
@Linda Featheringill:
Well, there’s generic “god be praised” and there’s specific “god loves ME soo much he makes my life better even while thousands of babies starve to death in Africa” so I go with pathological narcissism. And remember, a good chuck of the Dominionist crowd thinks that the end times have been delayed because Jews haven’t converted, so they’re angling to get into power and help the end times along with another Mideast war. In spite of the horrible death and destruction. Because THEY”LL be saved.
kay
Donut,
I am on my way to working, so cannot respond, too long, but I will try answer your question, maybe later?
Linda Featheringill
@satby:
I must admit that a lot of religion looks like self-worship. You stand in a light and cast a shadow and then worship that shadow.
[God-be-praised. :-)]
JPL
Milbank has an opinion piece on Perry’s today. It ends with Onward, Libertarian Soldiers. link
Pococurante
Ah Kay, yew ain’t from aroun’ heah.
I’m a Texan. Perry did not lose the round. He won it. This plays into the “Christians are under attack by liberal anything-goes secular minority-infested society” narrative.
All these types of posturing stunts are not intended to “succeed”. They are intended to fan resentment, donations, and voter turnout.
Today’s GOP don’t turn away once in office. They return to the well repeatedly.
JPL
@EconWatcher: The google confirms that some believe nations can be punished for sins of their citizens. Although the article says fewer than, I find 38% large.
link
Odie Hugh Manatee
@JPL:
There’s that damned 27% again. They show up in the craziest places (literally).
OT but redneck related: The daughter and I were checking out a Left4Dead map and a real redneck (IP traces back to Georgia) griefer, drawl and all, joined up and proceeded to try and ruin our fun. He started shooting us, calling us “fag” and “faggot” repeatedly and finally raged out once he discovered that we were admins and he was on our server (at our mercy).
Of course, first we killed his microphone, then we killed him, brought him back to life, set him on fire, had him “supertanked” and basically played with him like a well fed cat plays with a rat. While doing that, we told him that once we were done with him that he would be banned from all of our Valve game servers. He finally got fed up and quit, then we auto-banned him on all servers, as promised. Of course he tried to log back in but that ain’t happening.
Our community is a bit cleaner now. :)
Stefan
@EconWatcher:
Why didn’t the Good Lord just make her not afraid of flying? Wouldn’t that have been easier than fucking around with the continental weather system every time she feels the urge for a little jaunt?
Odie Hugh Manatee
Hep me, teh BJ Mod Gawd done et me post! Must be sum bad werds…
Thanks, and good morning! :)
Bruuuuce
@Linda Featheringill: The old truism is correct: Man made God in his own image.
jibeaux
I think the problem with using the assault on reproductive rights to try to galvanize voters is that public opinion on the issue hasn’t changed significantly in forty years. People are divided, they’ve been divided, they will stay divided, and that includes women. There is majority support for abortion rights, but there’s also frequently majority support for restrictions like waiting periods and parental notification. Of course, I think if you got some favorable polling in your state it’s definitely worth a shot. NC passed, and overrode the governor’s veto, this year of one of these execrable required ultrasound laws. There’s no money for pre-K, but there’s $8 million for unwanted, unneeded ultrasounds all right. I would be very interested in seeing if we can get some positive polling, especially in some of those valuable subgroups whose turnout we need.
bmaccnm
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree. Somehow God, who is responsible for the heavens and the oceans and the starving children of Bolivia gives a care about your JV football game and your math mid-term. It is pathological narcissim. Thanks for explaining it, because I never got it before.
Halcyan
@EconWatcher:
What is fascinating is to watch a true believer try to explain that. I am not a deist, nor an atheist. I am a curious observer. But one thing I do know for sure – there isn’t a father-like figure somewhere looking out for *me* personally.
So maybe.
rikryah
this is why the courts are important
soonergrunt
@EconWatcher: In her world, God and the angels are like the ultimate concierge service. If you’re the right kind of person, you too can take advantage. That happens to correlate very well with being the kind of person that can take advantage of hotels and other such that have concierge service.
@Omnes Omnibus: stopped clocks, law of large numbers, infinite monkey theorem…
Halcyan
@Linda Featheringill:
I think this is true. Of course, for me, the spiritual can be more closely represented by the Star Wars theory (may the Force be with you), but my observation is that most folks do want to attribute what we see as “good luck” to some sort of providence. I think everyone struggles though, with how to attribute natural disasters (tsunami, earthquake, volcano) – hence the fidiots making statements about how God is “getting” someone for some slight. They are only taking this same concept to its logical conclusion. If this God is responsible for the good things, is he not also responsible for the horrendous?
soonergrunt
@Halcyan:
You are, of course, talking about pre-prequal trilogy, right? I mean, midichlorians? Really?
Amir Khalid
@Ben Cisco:
If Ross Douthat is right, then right-wing politicians like Rick Perry are lying to their base in order to get elected — and are thus undeserving of office. If Douthat is wrong and these right-wing politicians actually believe what they tell their base, then left-leaning and moderate voters would be right to consider them a menace to civil liberties in America.
I don’t think Douthat is really all that clueless. The word that comes to me is “disingenuous”.
Halcyan
@Bruuuuce:
LOL – I have used that line for years. I thought I was quoting Jethro Tull LP “Aqualung”. Had you heard it before that?
Halcyan
@soonergrunt:
Yeah, well, I mostly got it from A New Hope :) I had to look up your word midichlorians.
efroh
I wonder what his rationale was. There’s nothing scientific there besides let’s make women feel guilty for having sex and getting pregnant.
Unfortunately, I don’t think there will ever be increased support for reproductive freedom in this county until large numbers of white middle-class teenage girls (the upper-class will always be able to get safe abortions, and nobody cares about poor people) start dying due to failed illegal abortions.
EconWatcher
@Stefan:
Excellent point. Made me laugh.
beltane
@Halcyan: This actually gets at the “Just world fallacy”, a neurological defect in the human species, not only religious people, that involves not being able to accept that bad things often happen randomly, for no purpose or reason at all, and thus cannot be prevented or warded off. Some religions and people are more evolved in recognizing this, but many others are not. American evangelical Christianity is about the absolute worst in this respect because it is a narcissistic religion in which believers are trained to consider God as their own personal house-boy.
R-Jud
@Stefan: God’s a showoff. Like that bodybuilder you know who’s always making excuses to lift heavy things or take off his shirt. “Is that my car… over THERE?” [flexes bicep, points]
EconWatcher
@beltane:
I was raised RC, and while I’ll stipulate to pretty much anything bad anyone wants to say about the Church, I’ll give it this: We were taught that it was a sin to pray for selfish things. The “God as concierge” idea seems to be a Baptist and fundie evangelical thing.
beltane
@EconWatcher: Catholicism is traditionally big on the humility thing, and especially the guilt thing. Fundies are “saved”, which means they are very Special People who have been freed from all feelings of guilt and shame no matter what they do. It is really a very American, consumerist type of faith that has no relation at all to traditional Christianity.
Bruuuuce
@Halcyan: I thought I was quoting Robert Heinlein, but from this page, we have
I know I’ve been saying it this way since at least when I was in college (1979 or so).
Mnemosyne
@EconWatcher:
Not only that, but I distinctly remember learning from some official Catholic source (CCD?) that prayers are always answered — it’s just that sometimes the answer is, “No.”
Back on topic, but does it seem to anyone else that part of what they’re hoping for with these kinds of laws is to increase the number of false reports of rape so the whole concept can be discredited? If the only way to get an abortion is to falsely claim you were raped, that’s going to result in a whole lot of false accusations that will make it even harder for an actual rape victim to get justice.
They never plan small with shit like this, so I suspect that an increase in false rape accusations would be a feature, not a bug, for them. Just sayin’.
FoxinSocks
When it comes to abortion, I notice that people immediately start talking about teenage girls. Note that 65% of abortions are by women who already have at least one child and who usually have a husband or long-time boyfriend. They’re like my friend, married with three children, whose birth-control failed. With the economy so bad, they were already on the edge of losing their house, so she got a safe, legal abortion, even though she and her husband had to drive over an hour to the nearest clinic.
Then there’s my friend, also married and broke, who just did her abortion at home rather than deal with all the onerous new requirements. She said it was surprisingly easy and complication-free. Scares the crap out of me, because that’s really the wave of the future, women not having access to abortion, even when it’s supposed to be legal, and just taking the matter into their own hands.
BruceK
The one that sticks out for me is from Inherit the Wind:
And then there’s always:
Yeah, I guess the play had an effect on me.
chopper
great. so texas will just make sure that those sonograms cost $5000 a pop.
shortstop
@Stefan: Thread win.
ETA: @soonergrunt: You tie with this:
Jewish Steel
Where’s the Activist Judges! tag?
kindness
@Amir Khalid: Disingenuous is being too kind. Douthat is a liar. Douthat knows he’s a liar but expects the rest of the media to give him a pass so he can continue to influence others with his lies. Think how the MSM defended Fox news as an actual news organization when Clinton & Obama called them out as propaganda operations. Same thing with Douthat.
@chopper: Uh, no, he didn’t. he said they shouldn’t be required by law and struck it down.
Stefan
@Amir Khalid:
Good point. And if they’ll lie to their own supporters, why shouldn’t we assume that they won’t lie to us? Douthat’s argument (if I may call it that) boils down to “Trust him — he’s lying!”
soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: I think that’s a side effect. Perhaps somebody on their end might have realized that to be (possibly for them) efficacious, but the primary reason for a rape/incest exception is because that’s a bright line for a lot of people–that the state shouldn’t force women to birth their rapist’s baby. It is, of course, a canard, but you go with the wingnuts you have and not the wingnuts you wish you had.
soonergrunt
@shortstop: why, thank you, Sir.
btw–my comment at 46, replying to Mnemosyne at 38 is in moderation, don’t know why.
Jennifer
@efroh: They’ve already covered that angle. A generation from now there won’t be any middle-class teenage girls, much less large numbers of them.
See? Problem solved.
Stefan
Not only that, but I distinctly remember learning from some official Catholic source (CCD?) that prayers are always answered—it’s just that sometimes the answer is, “No.”
Aha. This explains why there’s been no progress on my unceasing supplications to the deity for a threesome involving me, Mila Kunis and the hot blonde chick who works at my local coffee shop.
Stefan
@soonergrunt:
Just a clarification, shortstop may be many things, but she is no “sir.”
Villago Delenda Est
@chopper:
No, that’s the Florida solution.
At one of Rick Scott’s wife’s sonogram franchise offices.
kindness
Ouch. I was wrong. The judge said sonograms did have to be done. Sorry about that.
shortstop
@Stefan: You’re just a boy who can’t hear no.
soonergrunt
@Stefan:
@shortstop:
I stand, er, sit corrected.
shortstop
@soonergrunt: Meh, no biggie. I’m not much of a short either. Long story.
jprfrog
Accepting Jesus is a get-out-of-hell-free card that can be played over and over again. You can sin all you want but then just say the magic words and put some bucks in the collection plate or mail (a few tears and some breast-beating are just frosting on the cake) and Presto! you are free to do it all over again. Hard to beat that deal.
I once drove on I-70 from KC to St Louis on a crosss-country trip. It was one of the few areas where I cold not get a decent NPR or college station to listen to some good music…but every other station on the dial seemed to have some hell-fire-and-brimstone preacher screaming about Jesus and salvation. What made it most interesting was that about every ten miles or so on the interstate, I saw a huge billboard (and I mean HUGE) advertising a sex-shop — videos, toys, costumes, etc. I have never seen that so blatant anywhere, not even in secular Massachusetts where I lived for 35 years (or for that matter in most of the Greater NYC area where I am now). I guess they really need those preachers, but the preaching doesn’t seem to work very well (like Gov. Goodhair praying for rain). Just saying.
I have to pass this along, from the Andy Borowitz Report: “Elsewhere, after Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) said God created last week’s earthquake and hurricane to punish America, God issued this rebuttal: “Actually, that’s why I created Michele Bachmann.” “
soonergrunt
@jprfrog: The very first thing one sees when traveling down I-35 across the OK/TX state line into Texas is a whole slew of pr0n shops.
Bruuuuce
@jprfrog: Your description of your trip reminded me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPLJiVvLO5A
Frankensteinbeck
FoxInSox @39:
Bear in mind, they’re emotional, not logical thinkers. They are TERRIFIED of the idea that their daughter might have sex as a teenager, even a daughter they don’t have yet. Add that to how awesomely righteous they feel yelling about baby killers and I figure you have 90% of conservative anti-women issues.
cckids
Have these people ever seen a sonogram from that early (4-8 weeks)? Almost no one can actually find the baby, even if it is a wanted pregnancy & you are hoping to see it. That the fundies believe seeing a vague jellybean on a screen full of static will make a woman change her mind is insane.
Stefan
@shortstop:
I’m in a terrible fix.
kay
@Donut:
I don’t know how to do it. I don’t really know about “battleground” states, but where I live, any sort of event or rally or such wouldn’t work, because no one would come. Plenty of people are pro-choice, they vote for pro-choice politicians, after all, if they’re Democrats, but no one here would make abortion a focus, in any public way. They’d be too scared of the resulting freak-out and negative attention that would garner. That’s my honest opinion. I think the whole issue has become so toxic, so over-the-top crazy, that ordinary people who have to live and work here just wouldn’t touch it, basically out of fear.
Sad, but that’s what I think.
So, I don’t know how you’d approach this or organize around it in any public way. You’d have to get around all that fear of talking about it at all.
Gretchen
@60cckids: that early you can’t do the “plop the sensor on her stomach” sonogram most parents are familiar with. You do the “big vaginal probe” sonogram, in order to pick up the tiny jellybean fetus that otherwise would be invisible. The bonus is that you get to do something really invasive, uncomfortable, and completely unnecessary as a prelude to any abortion.
soonergrunt
@Gretchen: You don’t think that’s a feature and not a bug for them in this case? All the more to freak the potential patient out about the whole thing after all.
debbie
@ Donut:
While conservatives would have you believe that all Planned Parenthood does is plot how to perform abortions on every living thing, a considerable amount of their effort is in advocacy. It used to mostly be for health care services and education, but they’ve pivoted to fight all this garbage going on. There are local PPs, as well as state-level offices and the national organizations.
In Ohio, the state-level group (PPAO) appears to focus exclusively on advocacy. I don’t know how it works at other levels and in other states, but if you’re looking for activism, PP would be a good place to start.
There’s also NARAL, but I don’t know if they’re as widespread as PP.