WE WON’T BE CONTROLLED BY YOU

Greetings. I am a voting constituent in rural west Texas. What we’re reading… “A study published yesterday (June 24) in the pediatrics journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA Pediatrics) shows that the idea of returning women to roles as wives and mothers by banning abortion has, in Texas, driven infant death rates 12.9% higher. The rest of the country saw an increase of 1.8%. Infant deaths from congenital anomalies increased almost 23% in Texas while they decreased for the rest of the nation, showing that the abortion ban is forcing women to carry to term fetuses that could not survive.  When the Texas ban went into effect, Governor Greg Abbott said there was no need to make an exception for rape, because Texas was going to “eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas.” Instead, in a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers estimated that in the 16 months after the Texas ban, 26,313 rape-related pregnancies occurred in the state.” The GOP hypocrisy on this subject is limitless. Women are dying in increasing numbers. Babies are dying in increasing numbers. Misery, trauma, death. All increasing under your watch. Where is the concern for life in today’s Texas? What does the sanctity of life actually mean to you? Empty words. Limp actions. Control, not concern. We also read that Republicans in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Texas are now taking on the cause of eliminating no-fault divorce. Are you serious? So now we are expected to have a woman’s health care and family planning be determined by God’s will. With no human intervention on the outcome allowed in any circumstance. (Regardless of what you keep telling us, doctors and hospitals are not clear-cut on what constitutes an actual emergency under your politician-written laws on abortion.) And now we will also be expected to stay shackled to a partner who perhaps wants to kill us in order to preserve the sanctity of the family unit? No matter the cost? No abortions. No abortion drugs. No contraceptives. No IVF. No divorce without court-determined cause. This is what we see you pursuing. Your words cannot be trusted. Your actions are what we see. Y’all are nuts. Texas can’t turn blue fast enough.