Texas Women Are Inducing Their Own Abortions

[n2doc]

OLGA KHAZAN

“I didn’t have any money to go to San Antonio or Corpus [Christi]. I didn’t even have any money to get across town ... I was just dirt broke.”

That was the response given by a 24-year-old woman in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley when asked by researchers why she had attempted to terminate her pregnancy on her own, without medical help.

Between 100,000 and 240,000 Texas women between the ages of 18 and 49 have tried to end a pregnancy by themselves, according to a pair of surveys released Tuesday by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project, a University of Texas-based effort aimed at determining the impact of the state’s reproductive policies.

The figure was found by asking an online, representative sample of 779 women whether they themselves or whether their best friends had ever tried to self-induce an abortion. Of the Texas women surveyed, 1.7 percent said they had performed an abortion on themselves, but 4.1 percent of them said their best friend had or they suspected she had.

more

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/11/texas-self-abort/416229/?utm_source=SFFB

[Vogon_Glory]

1. This Is What Happens When You Don't Vote

This is what happens when you don't vote. You leave medical policy in the hands of ideologues, theocrats, and ivory-tower fantasy-dwellers to make decisions concerning your body for you.

I wish there was some way to communicate to these women and their loved ones that if you don't vote, some right-wing rabidly anti-abortion fanatic will cheerfully go to the polls and make those decisions for you.

Elections aren't popularity contests to pick the most handsome or agreeable candidate. They are to choose the candidates that will protect your interests.

I am sorry, but after Wendy Davis not only lost but got stomped by the Teapublicans in the 2014 election, I can't help but ask these women: "WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU WHEN IT WAS CRUNCH TIME?! ARE YOU DOORMATS?! ARE YOU GOING TO EVEN LIFT A FINGER TO PROTECT YOURSELVES?! BECAUSE WHEN YOU DON'T, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS!!!"

[BlueCollar]

2. voting as a progressive in Texas

Is an exercise in futility. The system has been gamed to ensure that Christian Conservatives/Evangelicals, Homophobes, Bigots, Gunners and Anglo's run the legislature and every elected office.

Unlike the Federal model, there is no separation of Church and State model and the Judicial branch of the system is nothing more than a tool for the Church and the Prison Industry.

Your vote doesn't count even if you cast it here. With a few exceptions the state of Texas has evolved into a Theocracy.

I go through the motions knowing that I am irrelevant and that my vote doesn't count.

The only way to protect a woman's right to choose in Texas is to support organizations like Planned Parenthood, the Texas Freedom Network, the ACLU etc. and hope like hell they can influence the government in Washington to protect Texas residents from the tyranny of the state.

I write this after having lived in Texas for almost twenty five years. As a straight white male, I enjoy a special privilege. I cannot begin to imagine how incredibly difficult it must be to live here as a person of color, a woman or a member of the LGBT community.

Sorry for the rant....

[n2doc]

3. My experience there also

Lived there for 6 years. Happy to leave. I do miss the BBQ. But voting never changed anything, too many idiots and too much gerrymandering.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. Even Assuming That The Rethuglies Continue To Have A Lock On The Lege

Even assuming that the Rethuglies continue to have a lock on the state legislature, just how far do you think that Texas Republicans would have gotten if enough people had turned out to vote in statewide Democratic offices?

Let's use the last election as a hypothetical example: no Governor Greg Abbot, no Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, no Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Texas Supreme Court yanked out of the hands of the Texas GOP. Yeah, voting DOES make a difference--even for Texas progressives.

[BlueCollar]

6. State re-districting guarantees Republican wins

Last edited Thu Nov 19, 2015, 03:11 PM - Edit history (1)

Even if one could register every uncommitted voter as a democrat and get every democrat to vote, it is my opinion that the deck is stacked as a result of the redistricting that took place after the last census.
I testified against the plan when the roadshow came through town but it was obvious that the fix was in. Give the Dems the valley and Austin. Make Dallas look purple but make damn sure Fort Worth, Waco, Houston, Wichita Falls, Abilene etc stay blood red.

Then pass voter ID laws to ensure that you make it harder to vote if you are elderly, Hispanic, African-American, or any other non-white male category.

Throw together a group of "Texas Democrats" to run the show that behave like California Republicans and you have it all in place.

Finally, cut education spending at the K -12 level to ensure that the next generation of Texas voters are even more ignorant than the present generation of voters in order to perpetuate the mediocrity.

And. I haven't even started on electronic voting machine rigging.

The fact is the political process in Texas does not belong to the people, it belongs to the groups I mentioned in my earlier post.

With the exception of Wendy Davis we haven't had a real democrat run for any statewide office since Anne Richards.

There is a reason the gallery in the Capitol building in Austin is referred to as the "Owners' Boxes"

We are well represented in Texas.

A$$&€£=$ like Patton, Cruz, Corny, Goehmert, Abbot, and Patrick do in fact represent Texas very well.

Note please that I said they represent Texas very well. I didn't say they represented Texans very well.

[niyad]

5. the woman-hating gestational slavers hope we all die.