FAKE CONCERN. TRUE HARM.

Greetings. I am a voting constituent in rural west Texas. I’m out of words to express how cruel Texas is being to its pregnant citizens. How inhumane. How heartless. The latest public instance continues to confirm this. A young woman, looking forward to a pregnancy, was instead forced to turn to the courts when her pregnancy was determined to be problematic to both her and her child. If carried to term it would not survive. In the meantime the pregnancy was wreaking havoc on her health. And on her future prospects to become pregnant again. Which she dearly hoped could happen again in the future. When the judge ruled that yes, she could proceed with the necessary abortion, that do do otherwise would be cruel and unusual, what did our state do? What did our AG do? He vowed to do everything possible to prevent her from taking care of her own life. To prevent her from potentially saving her own life. He threatened hospitals, and the doctors working there, with potential criminal liability if they helped her. On the one hand we have Texas assuring women that it’s the doctors who have the rightful say in whether an abortion is medically necessary. On the other hand, we have an AG saying the doctors can’t be trusted to do that very thing. Or worse, doctors have to make decisions based on language written by lawmakers, not doctors. It has been suggested in an ongoing case involving 20 Texas women who experienced problematic life-threatening pregnancies, that they had no current standing in the courts since they were no longer experiencing a problematic pregnancy. That they would need to be in the throes of a crisis to have a legitimate concern that would give them legitimacy in the court. But now we have the answer to that red herring. It doesn’t matter what state of crisis a pregnant person is in, or not in, the state’s intent is to fight a termination regardless. Is it any wonder that doctors are afraid to follow their Hippocratic Oath when faced with such obvious contradictions? The abortion laws in Texas are not laws. They are non-medically written bans. Written with language designed to be vague and confusing and non-specific. Written with language that even lawyers and the courts (and maybe even the AG) seem to find opaque. Whenever women read about yet another case such as this that illustrates the total lack of regard for women’s health, but the total desire for control over us, we get madder. And madder. You continue to ignore this reality. But it is reality. And you’re on the losing side of the argument. How can you be okay with taking away self-autonomy from half your constituents and replacing it with harm?