Texas Senator Hegar—I hope you are RIGHT and there is a God and a Heaven and
a Hell.
I can think of no
more fitting price to pay for your mean, hypocritical behavior in the State
Capitol this past few weeks. That Christian god whose ass you lick so
diligently has a huge reputation for charity, and you displayed NONE regarding
the omnibus abortion legislation. When you find yourself assigned to
hell, along with Governor Perry and the rest of your conservative cohorts, I
think you will discover that this battlefield you paraded around so self-righteously
here on earth set you all up for eternal damnation.
When this bill
was signed by Governor Perry you said, “There has been no other piece of
legislation that I have ever worked on — nor any that I will ever work on —
that has weighed so heavy on my mind, on my heart and literally on my soul.” You dishonest, ignorant, son of a bitch—how brazen
of you to pretend to being a leader, an informed decision maker representing
ALL of your constituents, when all you are is a poor excuse for what an elected
official should be. I don’t give a damn what your soul says you pious loser.
Abortion is legal in the United States and yet you are proud of your service as
Perry’s lackey to make this end run to limit access to abortions—an action that
will have a far greater negative impact. Have you looked at the map of the loss of
clinics in Texas? You may see unborn lives saved, but I see a brutal slash of
savage meanness that will be crippling for Texas women and the families that
love them from the Rio Grande Valley, up the 1,254 miles of the Texas/Mexico
border, into the great plains, and across the panhandle. Your chickenshit
legislation will close down clinics that serve many of the state’s poor, rural,
and underserved populations. You think that’s going to make your GOD happy? I
don’t.
Today, July 18th,
when you and your crew were signing and celebrating your bill, I was flat on the
floor of a clinic in the Rio Grande valley. I was weighing my options, as an
unexpected and serious illness while traveling with my children left me with a
few bad choices. Turns out medical options are scarce down here, and when you
are sick—and I'm sure it gets worse when you are sick and scared—you find yourself
making decisions based on a lot of things that should not rank above a healthy outcome.
But here I am, a 50-year old professional woman with cash in my purse and a
friend that made the trip to the valley to sit beside me in my pain—and I was trying to
decide if the cost of an ambulance to a decent hospital an hour away was worth
it. I can’t get up off the floor and I’m thinking about cost—and I have
insurance. I’m also realizing I’m too sick to travel and too sick to stay in such a
medical wasteland—and I don’t know what to do. Let me tell you something, with
all the things I have going for me I felt screwed. An 8-hour drive when I'm sick? A higher cost for services that were inexpensive or free in the past? But YOU, and that half-assed
excuse for a Governor, and the rest of your conservative league of falsely
pious shits have just condemned tens of thousands of women (with far fewer
resources than I have available) to feeling screwed for years to come. Are you not afraid,
really, truly afraid, that this action will haunt you all?
I cannot find the
words for my rage.
If men got
pregnant, this sort of legislation would never, ever, be considered.
If ANY of you elected
pricks and thin-lipped bitches think abortion hasn’t been the option of choice
for women you love (your MOTHERS, your DAUGHTERS, your SISTERS, and your WIVES)…think
again. I’ve been to those clinics and there were plenty of affluent, white, Christian,
gals in there that were YOUR family members. I don’t blame them for not telling
you, you are certifiable ASSHOLES and no one would trust you with such a
personal and painful choice. I do blame YOU for thinking you know what’s best
and trying to deny women in Texas access to choice.
You stand on the
floor of the Texas Legislature and whimper about LIFE, in a state that executes
more humans than most nations. Governor Perry sent his 261st inmate to death
just this month. Don’t the lies about your belief in the sanctity of life stick
in your throats?
And WOMEN”S
HEALTH as a concern? Did some of you arrogant, wretched people reference
concerns for women’s health to justify your “playing god” legislation? NO ONE
IN AMERICA thinks this legislation has a single thing to do with health. It’s a
war on abortion access and you have the unmitigated nerve to suggest that you
care about health when Texas ranks DEAD LAST in America in health care services
on the 2012 scorecard issued by the federal Agency for Health Care Research and
Quality. Texas has the HIGHEST rating in uninsured citizens, and yet in
2011 our state’s morally bankrupt Republican majority underfunded Medicaid by billions
I went to the Texas
Capitol with my 10 year old daughter when I read that the State Senate was
forcing a showdown on June 25th. I took both kids to hearings earlier in the
week, but only my 10-year old daughter and I were there the night a big crowd
became an “unruly mob” and was written into the history books.
The lines wove crazily
through the Capitol, up stairways, down stairways, around rotundas, through
north and south wings…it was a cheerful group. Mostly women, almost all in
orange, ranging in age from 4 to 94.
We chatted, looked for
news on iphones and ipads, and speculated on if Senator Wendy Davis had opted
for a diaper or a catheter. (She has two kids—and those of us that have given
birth were disinclined to think any woman that has given birth twice could hold
her piss for 13 hours.) Food was passed out by volunteers, and water bottles
were distributed frequently.
It felt more like camping
out for tickets for the Dixie Chicks than a political event.
But there was a charge in
the air—and as things heated up on the Senate floor around 10:30 pm, the crowd
became more alert and tension rippled through as bits and pieces of news
reached us.
When the filibuster was
stopped, on dubious grounds, the crowd surged into a different mode.
Lines became tight
crowds, buzzes became roars.
It crossed my mind as the
DPS troopers tried to work through the crowd to the doors of the Senate Gallery, that they were being pretty polite—but who, really, would want to escalate
things with a bunch of women and children?
When the screaming and
shouting began in earnest, we knew what we were doing.
We were trying to drown
out the business of the Texas Senate.
It was deliberate,
heartfelt, and justified.
And we won a victory of
sorts.
The majority Republicans
were caught with their pants down—unable to finish what they started and caught
falsifying the records to cover their tracks.
They backed up, backed
down, and then Governor Perry called them all back for another round.
Make no mistake—this is a
war on abortion by 117 elected officials (plus Perry and Dewhurst, the worst of the
lot) from a state with more than 26 million residents.
This is war.
And I aim to fight.
I have been down to the
Capitol to submit testimony, march, shout, and stand many times since the night
of June 26th. The crowds get bigger and bigger. There are more men, more
children, and more indignant women. There are folks in blue on the “other side”
but they are terribly underwhelming as a whole.
This battle was lost,
but, I think, not the war.
I am an unlikely soldier
in this war, but I will NOT allow everything I have learned in the past 50
years to go unsaid.
I do not think a
pregnancy is the same thing as a baby.
I have miscarried after
the first trimester and that bloody mess was not a baby.
I would NEVER insist a
woman get an abortion, and I would NEVER insist a woman complete a pregnancy.
That fewer than 100
mealy-mouthed men and a dozen tightly wound, conservative bitches would
vote to decide to limit my options to end a pregnancy is stunning.
The audacity.
The hypocrisy.
The rule-breaking, the
cheating, the FRAUD from Republicans crowing about their moral high ground.
We should all be
terrified that they do so publicly, proudly, and oblivious to what this means.
It means Rick Perry and
his band of right-wing, like minded legislators think they can do whatever they
want.
Pro-death penalty
legislators promising to protect life.
Anti-gun control legislators
worried about a safer community.
It would be funny if it
were not so terrifying and sad.
I could write for years.
I will fight forever.
So when I say “GO TO HELL”
to these insufferable shits, I don’t mean “get lost” or “I hate you.” I mean I
really, really, really hope there is a hell and they congregate there for
eternity to burn in shame for being cruel, for being arrogant, and for being
WRONG in taking this action.
