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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Women's Rights / The War On Women / Texas’s Really Stupid War Against Planned Parenthood and Women

Texas’s Really Stupid War Against Planned Parenthood and Women

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Texas is the first state that has successfully excluded Planned Parenthood from providing services to women, but the manner they went about it is — how do you say — really stupid.

After attempting (and failing) to exclude Planned Parenthood from its federally-funded Women’s Health Program, Texas decided to create a state-funded Women’s Health Program specifically so it could exclude Planned Parenthood from it. (And a judge just said they could.)

Genius!

Except, not really.

Neither federal money nor taxpayer money is used for abortions in Texas. Planned Parenthood’s abortion services are fiscally and geographically separate from the rest of the services it provides: there’s no commingling of funds, and there’s no chance of walking into a clinic for a pap-smear and accidentally getting an abortion.

So yeah — it’s really stupid.

 

[read full post at ABLC]

***I’m going to try partial cross-posting for a while again. I hope it doesn’t enrage too many of you. Cheers!

Reader Interactions

68Comments

  1. 1.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    It’s not stoopid from the War on Women standpoint, ie, the Modern Republican Party.

    PP is simply the latest Prime Target the right uses to demonize the left. Remember how they usta scream about the ACLU? ACORN? And I’m sure I’m forgetting a few others. In their mind, PP is responsible for freeing wimmin-folk from the bedroom/kitchen/laundry room chains and that simply can’t be tolerated.

  2. 2.

    PeakVT

    Of course it’s stupid. This is Texas we’re talking about, where everything’s bigger, including the idiots.

  3. 3.

    Alison

    there’s no chance of walking into a clinic for a pap-smear and accidentally getting an abortion.

    Oh man, this would make for a great slapstick skit.

    Also too, fuck these assholes. PP is a damn lifesaver for so many women…but that’s it, isn’t it? They don’t *want* those women to have lifesavers, because they couldn’t give a fuck about their lives to begin with.

  4. 4.

    Yutsano

    I say we sit back and let them shoot themselves in the foot. Then wonder why so many young women are so eager to bug out of there.

  6. 6.

    the golden ticket

    The dronezzzz killed another Taliban leader. Can’t wait for wrong again Cole to rant about how wrong (translation..not wrong) it is.

    Cole says Cantor “is gone” and of course he is anything but.

    Tell me what stocks I should buy Cole so I can short them.

  8. 8.

    Linda Featheringill

    @Yutsano:

    Then wonder why so many young women are so eager to bug out of there.

    I spent a few years out of my life in Texas. Lovely land, crappy government.

    Anyway, I found out that damnyankees are better lovers than Texas men. But I don’t know how to spread the word across Texas.

  9. 9.

    Zifnab25

    Ah, I see you’ve made the classic error of assuming the abortion debate has anything to do with actual abortion. No, no, no. Planned Parenthood is an “Enemy of the People”, composed of nothing but liberal independent viper-women. It must be destroyed.

    Republicans in Texas need scalps. They need to look like they are “winning”. PP makes a great target, as it is composed of undesirables who can easily be vilified and hippie-punched and who can clearly be identified as “Liberal”. The beatings will continue until moral improves.

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    I hope it doesn’t enrage too many of you.

    As if! :)

    Still, gotta love Texas. It makes Florida look less stupid.

  16. 16.

    pseudonymous in nc

    In a country with a sane healthcare system, the state would be providing reproductive health services on a walk-in basis — actually owning the facilities, paying the staff and covering the cost of treatment. (Because, duh, it’s cheaper in the long run to do this.) Yes, there might be a fear of it becoming a political pawn, but again, I’m talking about a sane system here.

    As admirable as Planned Parenthood is, its existence is symptomatic of deep fuckedupness.

  17. 17.

    Persia

    @Alison:

    They don’t *want* those women to have lifesavers, because they couldn’t give a fuck about their lives to begin with.

    You got it.

  19. 19.

    Cassidy

    This may sound glib, and I don’t mean it to be, but women in red states who aren’t already fucked up wingers need to let “the well run dry” for a long time. No PP funding, no nookie. Plus it’s a stimulus; male prostitutes would be rolling in it.

  20. 20.

    Ed Drone

    @Alison:

    there’s no chance of walking into a clinic for a pap-smear and accidentally getting an abortion.

    Oh man, this would make for a great slapstick skit.

    A scene from a movie (I forget which):

    A woman goes to the hospital for some procedure, but gets put in a row of women awaiting hysterectomies. She’s knocked out and can’t tell them it’s the wrong line.

    When the doctor wheels himself over to where she’s lying, he takes one look at her spread-out lady parts and says, “This isn’t Mrs. Bernstein!”

    The scene worked because it looked like a genuine tragedy was about to take place, giving more ooomph! to the joke.

    Ed

  21. 21.

    Chris

    Neither federal money nor taxpayer money is used for abortions in Texas. Planned Parenthood’s abortion services are fiscally and geographically separate from the rest of the services it provides: there’s no commingling of funds, and there’s no chance of walking into a clinic for a pap-smear and accidentally getting an abortion.

    I think it has to do with the general conservative tribal ethic of “your actions don’t matter, only the label we stick on you matters.”

    Abortion may have been the original reason why Planned Parenthood ended up on their shit list. But once you’re on that shit list, all your members are automatically evil servants of Satan, and your organization must be destroyed no matter what.

  22. 22.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    ***I’m going to try partial cross-posting for a while again. I hope it doesn’t enrage too many of you. Cheers!

    OMFG, I shouldn’t have to click another link to go to your site. Just crosspost both places and include a link at the top to the post on your site. That way, anyone that wants to click over can, and anyone that doesn’t can just read it here.

  24. 24.

    Ed Drone

    @Walker:

    South Carolina can always point at Mississippi.

    Only if they can tell which direction is west. (In other words, don’t count on it).

    Ed

  25. 25.

    Chris

    @Zifnab25:

    Republicans in Texas need scalps. They need to look like they are “winning”. PP makes a great target, as it is composed of undesirables who can easily be vilified and hippie-punched and who can clearly be identified as “Liberal”. The beatings will continue until moral improves.

    That’s it. There you go.

    Republican politics needs a scapegoat as badly as Nazi politics did.

  27. 27.

    NonyNony

    I hope it doesn’t enrage too many of you.

    I hope it does. Because the comedic stylings of people getting outraged over the fact that they have to click a link on the internet never fails to amuse me.

    ETA: And just like that I get a chuckle.

  28. 28.

    nancydarling

    Well, it is Texas. Texas Monthly magazine just published an article about a Harvard study published in the NEJM reporting that 9,000 people a year under age 65 will die because of their refusal to accept medicaid expansion

  29. 29.

    Yutsano

    @nancydarling: Yesbut…did it mention they were poor and brown or blah? You can’t expect good red-blooded Texan folk to care about those kind now can you?

  30. 30.

    Face

    With the seemingly exponential increase in Brown kids being born in Texas, you’d think they’d crave some birth control and family planning. Nigh, require it. Instead they burn down the only store that supplies it to the poor melatonin-enhanced population, guarenteeing in a generation or so that they’ll be outnumbered and outvoted.

    Suicide by policy?

  31. 31.

    Soonergrunt

    “I’m going to try partial cross-posting for a while again. I hope it doesn’t enrage too many of you. Cheers!”
    Fuck ’em if it does.

  32. 32.

    Schlemizel

    So what kind of numbers are we going to be talking about here ultimately? I mean they are not going to get off scott free on this. Say an extra 2-3 thousand babies on AFDC etc every year, adding year over year? medical expenses to cover a couple hundred botched attempts to abort at home every year?

    How much is this chicken shit going to cost the good tax payers of the Lone Star Shit Hole?

    Normally I’d want to discuss the horrible impact on women & children this choice would have but it is obvious the assholes couldn’t care less about them. So lets put it in figures they will care about. How much is this stupidity going to cost the fuckers?

    ETA: yes, I am well aware that there are some actual liberals in Texas – who cares? The state is dominated and run by low life shitheads & until that changes normal people will point at the entire state and laugh without regard to the fact that Huston eve has a gay mayor

  33. 33.

    rikyrah

    @Alison:

    Also too, fuck these assholes. PP is a damn lifesaver for so many women…but that’s it, isn’t it? They don’t *want* those women to have lifesavers, because they couldn’t give a fuck about their lives to begin with.

    tell the truth, why don’t you?

  34. 34.

    kathy a.

    @Patricia Kayden: the majority of voters in texas want politicians deciding who can and can’t get ordinary health services? ummmm…. well, i guess that is technically true, but they wouldn’t want that for themselves.

  37. 37.

    Linda Featheringill

    @Schlemizel: #32

    Yes, I am well aware that there are some actual liberals in Texas – who cares? The state is dominated and run by low life shitheads & until that changes normal people will point at the entire state and laugh without regard to the fact that Houston even has a gay mayor.

    Perhaps our fellow reasonable people in Texas can spread the word about how much it is going to cost the state of Texas.

    Do these liberals and progressive folks need our encouragement in any way?

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    @Schlemizel:

    I’m mobile and can’t search for it, but there was a recent article saying that the state government of Texas was shocked — shocked! — that they’re already having to pay for prenatal and pediatric care because of this ban. Because apparently these geniuses thought it was the birth control making wimmens pregnant, not the lack of it.

  44. 44.

    Frankensteinbeck

    There is truth in both @Zifnab25 and @Alison‘s points. However, they ARE attacking abortion. No, the money being denied doesn’t directly fund abortions, but Planned Parenthood makes getting an abortion easier and safer, so attacking it in any way furthers their anti-abortion aim. The inefficiency of their tactic, the widescale cruelty, the way it will rebound on them and cause more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions – they don’t care. They want to wage a war on ‘baby killers’ so they can wallow in hate, self-righteousness, and having the freedom to hurt people because they feel like it.

  45. 45.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @pseudonymous in nc:

    Because, duh, it’s cheaper in the long run to do this.

    The MBA mentality is the downfall of this country. Mark my words. Climate change denial is basically the MBA mentality on steroids.

  46. 46.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Oh, and cultural enforcement, because you know, they can claim people who aren’t like them kill babies. It’s another example of ‘conservatism is domestic abuser thinking on a political level.’

  47. 47.

    Mandalay

    I hope it doesn’t enrage too many of you.

    I hope it does.

    Seeing our champions of the disadvantaged squealing like ass-fucked piglets when they had to do an extra mouse click was the all time highlight of BJ for me.

  48. 48.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    Jaysus, I’m glad you posted this — it reminded me that I had left my pill pack at home. Poor G had to bring it to the airport for me and pass it through TSA.

    (Yes, I’m flying back to Phoenix today. Unfortunately I need to ask everyone to change their thoughts and prayers for my dad to “easy and painless” at this point.)

  49. 49.

    aimai

    @Schlemizel:

    This just came up already. I was looking for the stats but I couldn’t find them. I believe the number of unawanted pregnancies that the state created as a result of shutting down PP is already in the 20,000’s. Texas is a big place with a lot of people having sex. If the sex is unprotected that is going to lead to a whole lot of unwanted pregnancies. Here, by the way, is a quote from a heartbreaking first person account by a woman who needed to terminate a second trimester (wanted) pregnancy of a severely damaged fetus:

    I am so sorry,” the young woman said with compassion, and nudged the tissues closer. Then, after a moment’s pause, she told me reluctantly about the new Texas sonogram law that had just come into effect. I’d already heard about it. The law passed last spring but had been suppressed by legal injunction until two weeks earlier.

    My counselor said that the law required me to have another ultrasound that day, and that I was legally obligated to hear a doctor describe my baby. I’d then have to wait 24 hours before coming back for the procedure. She said that I could either see the sonogram or listen to the baby’s heartbeat, adding weakly that this choice was mine.

    “I don’t want to have to do this at all,” I told her. “I’m doing this to prevent my baby’s suffering. I don’t want another sonogram when I’ve already had two today. I don’t want to hear a description of the life I’m about to end. Please,” I said, “I can’t take any more pain.” I confess that I don’t know why I said that. I knew it was fait accompli. The counselor could no more change the government requirement than I could. Yet here was a superfluous layer of torment piled upon an already horrific day, and I wanted this woman to know it.

    “We have no choice but to comply with the law,” she said, adding that these requirements were not what Planned Parenthood would choose. Then, with a warmth that belied the materials in her hand, she took me through the rules. First, she told me about my rights regarding child support and adoption. Then she gave me information about the state inspection of the clinic. She offered me a pamphlet called A Woman’s Right to Know, saying that it described my baby’s development as well as how the abortion procedure works. She gave me a list of agencies that offer free sonograms, and which, by law, have no affiliation with abortion providers. Finally, after having me sign reams of paper, she led me to the doctor who’d perform the sonography, and later the termination.

    The doctor and nurse were professional and kind, and it was clear that they understood our sorrow. They too apologized for what they had to do next. For the third time that day, I exposed my stomach to an ultrasound machine, and we saw images of our sick child forming in blurred outlines on the screen.

    “I’m so sorry that I have to do this,” the doctor told us, “but if I don’t, I can lose my license.” Before he could even start to describe our baby, I began to sob until I could barely breathe. Somewhere, a nurse cranked up the volume on a radio, allowing the inane pronouncements of a DJ to dull the doctor’s voice. Still, despite the noise, I heard him. His unwelcome words echoed off sterile walls while I, trapped on a bed, my feet in stirrups, twisted away from his voice.

    “Here I see a well-developed diaphragm and here I see four healthy chambers of the heart…”

    I closed my eyes and waited for it to end, as one waits for the car to stop rolling at the end of a terrible accident.

    When the description was finally over, the doctor held up a script and said he was legally obliged to read me information provided by the state. It was about the health dangers of having an abortion, the risks of infection or hemorrhage, the potential for infertility and my increased chance of getting breast cancer. I was reminded that medical benefits may be available for my maternity care and that the baby’s father was liable to provide support, whether he’d agreed to pay for the abortion or not.

    Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. That ugly word, to pepper that ugly statement, to embody the futility of all we’d just endured. Futile because we’d already made our heart-breaking decision about our child, and no incursion into our private world could change it.

    Finally, my doctor folded the paper and put it away: “When you come back in 24 hours, the legal side is over. Then we’ll care for you and give you the information you need in the way we think is right.”

  51. 51.

    Pococurante

    @PeakVT:

    This is Texas we’re talking about, where everything’s bigger, including the idiots.

    My household donates $100 monthly to our state chapter of PP (Texas), and $15 monthly to the national organization.

    Ass.

  53. 53.

    aimai

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    I’m just so very, very, very, sorry you are going through this. All my thoughts and prayers are with you and your family that it is peaceful, painless, and filled with love.

    aimai

  56. 56.

    Ruckus

    @Cassidy:
    Had similar thoughts. And even though I’ve never met Linda, I’m going to thank her for the endorsement. Course I have no idea what to do with such and endorsement. And I’m sure that it has no practical application, but still, it is nice.

  57. 57.

    Grumpy Code Monkey

    @Betty Cracker:

    Still, gotta love Texas. It makes Florida look less stupid.

    Funny, that’s what Texans say about Florida. As long as we have each other, we aren’t the most retarded states in the Union; we tag off occasionally.

    Alternately, we could all start bagging on Mississippi.

  59. 59.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    Thanks, everybody. It’s been heading this way for a long time, but you always want just a little more time.

  60. 60.

    Felinious Wench

    @Pococurante:

    My household donates $100 monthly to our state chapter of PP (Texas), and $15 monthly to the national organization.

    Yes, we pull our weight too in donations to PP Texas. They need all the love we can give them.

    @Linda Featheringill:

    Do these liberals and progressive folks need our encouragement in any way?

    It’s really more of a “don’t kick us while we’re down” thing. Liberals and Progressives in Texas fight as hard as we can against a whole slew of people who actively hate us. HATE us. And it’s not a lost cause, but man, we have to work hard and exploit every tiny crack we find. We lose a lot more than we win.

    The alternative is to shut up and stop fighting. We’re too damn stubborn to do that, much like our liberal brethren in other red states. We’re not moving, and we’re not shutting up. This is our home too, and we’d rather work to change it than let it go to a bunch of bastards.

  61. 61.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):
    Many of us have been through this. I have twice. It doesn’t get better but it does get a little easier. I hope that helps. A proper hospice is very helpful for a such a hard process. I hope that things work out as best as they can for everyone.

  64. 64.

    R-Jud

    @Grumpy Code Monkey:

    Funny, that’s what Texans say about Florida. As long as we have each other, we aren’t the most retarded states in the Union; we tag off occasionally. Alternately, we could all start bagging on Mississippi.

    You’re making Arizona feel AWFULLY blue. They’ve been working so hard!

  65. 65.

    sm*t cl*de

    “liberal independent viper-women”
    Sounds pretty slinky. Do you have a newsletter to which I could subscribe?

    The answer is always Oglaf.

  66. 66.

    thalarctos

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): I’m really sorry, Mnemosyne. I’ll echo the wishes already expressed that it is easy and painless, and that he knows he is surrounded by love.

    Take good care of yourself, too. It sounds like you have a good support system.

  68. 68.

    J R in WV

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    Hey, Hospice does quick and easy better than anyone. So get you Folks with Hospice. The most caring people you will ever meet.

    My Dad had COPD from chemo for his leukemia, which he beat for all practical purposes. Lived for years when the average survival for his diagnosis was 9 months. But the chemo damaged his lungs, so his blood O2 levels started down, and eventually he couldn’t run his body with the amount of oxygen he could absorb.

    So we got with a local doctor who was the medical manager of the local hospice group. And they helped him slide out of this world with the least pain and most comfort – I was with him most all day every day for his last weeks. I held his hand, and read while he slept, and chatted when he woke up.

    It was good for all of us.

    So Hospice is who you should get in touch with.

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