Governor Rick Perry is picking up quite a bit of flack for signing the new abortion legislation into law. Crazy pro choice supporters running around the capitol with tampons arranged on their hats, and fiery women scream vicious remarks about the rights of their body. I honestly don't understand what everyone is freaking out about. Isn't the legislation a great compromise between both pro choice and pro life supporters. If we really stop and think, the allotted 20 weeks of legal abortion is an extremely generous period of time for a woman to not only find out she is pregnant, but also make the decision to terminate her pregnancy. If anyone should be angry about this piece of the legislation, shouldn't it be pro life supporters, not pro choice supporters?
Finding issue with the new regulations in abortion clinics is much more understandable. While I do personally believe that if abortions are going to be legal, they should be done in clean, hospital like areas, I agree with opposers that requiring regulation wide hallways as well as other various renovations that could cost between 1and 3 million dollars statewide is a little absurd. Even with the money issue created from this legislation, this is a huge step that all sides should, at least, be happy that the legislation is not very drastic in either direction. For once Governor Perry signed a somewhat moderate piece of legislation into law. It could have been much worse, and people should really think about how little this actually effects abortion as a whole. Yes, it could cost us a lot of money, and therefore I guess make getting an abortion a tiny bit harder, but it allows 20 weeks, TWENTY weeks, for a woman to have the choice to terminate the pregnancy as well as leaves room for extenuating circumstances such as a pregnancy that threatens the life of the mother to be terminated after 20 weeks.
2 comments:
While I do agree for the most part with the student who authored the blog post titled, “Lets Meet in the Middle,” I think there are a few points that can be argued here. On one hand, I can certainly see how pro-choice supporters’ actions can be viewed as a bit extreme. However, given the circumstances these supporters face, I do sympathize with their situation. Anyone who faces a Texas-sized opposition to their cause would very likely kick and scream and wear all of the bells and whistles to try and impress upon them that it is a very sensitive and important issue that they are passionately fighting for.
The other point I’d like to argue is that in my opinion, this piece of legislation actually does have a drastic effect on abortions in the state of Texas. There will only be a handful of clinics who will pass the new standards and the rest will have to either pull a major overhaul or be put to rest. This in turn will leave the masses of women in Texas who seek abortion procedures only a few clinics to choose from, and with their high volume of patients, these clinics will have to turn the majority of them away.
[My full response is probably much easier to read on my own blog: http://texasbestest.blogspot.com/2013/08/texas-hb-2-anything-but-moderate-re.html]
In a recent blog post, one of my classmates argues that Texas’ recent abortion legislation is actually rather moderate and that pro-choice protests are largely unwarranted: “Let’s Meet in the Middle” [from Everything’s Bigger in Texas: Texas Government Issues].
The blogger clearly communicates her views in a remarkably succinct and level-headed manner, though I believe that her overall argument is weakened or perhaps negatively influenced by a lack of research. I would advise her and my other classmates to refer to Jordan Smith’s recent piece in The Austin Chronicle for an example of high quality journalism on the real impact of Texas HB 2.
My classmate first considers the provision on a 20 week time limit for legal abortions and decides that this provision calls for “an extremely generous period of time” and implies that it may even be too generous – she asks, “If anyone should be angry about this piece of the legislation, shouldn't it be pro-life supporters, not pro-choice supporters?”
To this, I have to point out that the time limit really does very little to affect Texas abortions: most estimates agree that even before the bill passed, less than 1 percent of abortions took place after the 20 week period. However, my real issue is with my classmate’s stance on the new safety regulations being imposed on abortion clinics rather than her stance on the new time limit.
The blogger concedes that the upgrade costs the regulations impose on clinics that want to stay in business are absurd, but then argues that the regulations are still “somewhat moderate” rather than “very drastic. She blogs, HB 2 “could cost us a lot of money, and therefore I guess make getting an abortion a tiny bit harder” before saying that it is still moderate because of the time limit.
I completely disagree with my classmate’s suggestion that Texas abortion clinics are dirty or unprofessional back-alley places when she says, “if abortions are going to be legal, they should be done in clean, hospital like areas.”
Physicians from such relevant groups as the College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the American Medical Association (AMA), and even the Texas Hospital Association (THA) all point out several things: it is absurd to hold abortion clinics to the standards of surgical standards because abortion is not a surgical operation, it is misleading to suggest that the new safety standards increase safety for a clinical procedure that’s usually done in less than 10 minutes and results in complications in less than 3 percent of cases, and abortion doctors are unlikely to obtain hospital-admitting privileges since the procedure is almost never done in a hospital.
As I argue, with citations, in my own post on the topic, the real impact of the abortion clinic safety regulations is to eliminate the operability of most abortion clinics in the state. Feel free to check out my post on the topic, and check out Austin Chronicle article mentioned earlier for a description of how HB 2 is affecting clinics already, and check out this Dallas Morning News article for a description of how HB 2 may be dismantled in court.
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