So Rep. Hartnett's last-minute amendments to SB 419 passed. The first one imposed severe restrictions on late-term abortions in ways that can seriously endanger pregnant women's lives and put families through unimaginable emotional pain. It doesn't matter if your kid has a thirty-second life expectancy; if you found out too late because you didn't have health insurance, hey, that's your fault, you layabout, and you're going to have to go through labor and give birth because we say so. The second one required parental consent for minors to have abortions. It's not as bad as HB 1212, which got killed last week, but it's still bad. It makes it so much harder for young women in abusive homes to have a range of reproductive options available. And who exactly do you think is most likely to be in need of an abortion, someone who's got a sitcom-perfect relationship with her parents or someone whose parents are beating her up or who had a family member rape her? Hello? Did someone miss Molly Ivins' heartbreaking column on this?
Why are there no cranky email alerts flying around about this except from organizations that work solely on reproductive rights? Why did the TX blogosphere largely ignore these events?
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