Texas liberals shamefully protest Perry's measures to safeguard women's health

Certainly true - but state-wide races aren't gerrymandered, and they go overwhelmingly religious-conservative GOP too. As far as I know, there's no real evidence right now that this bill isn't in line with the general will of the people in Texas.

 

all polling (nationwide or Texas) indicates large majorities in favor of a post 20 week ban

 

No it's about your incredible hypocrisy in systematically placing barriers in front of women so they can't exercise a right that was determined constitutional decades ago. In dozens of states, conservatives continue to attack abortion over and over and over again placing barriers in front of people while they do next to nothing to help actual people in need, live people, not someday might be people, but actual people.

What is the conservative plan for education? It's the myth of vouchers. Vouchers is where the students with parental involvement, in other words cherry picking students who need the least help, leave poorly performing schools and take funding with them to choose better schools. That leaves the kids who need the most help still in underperforming schools. Great plan conservatives. You can extoll the success of using vouchers while leaving a gigantic portion of children in the same ****ty schools they've been in. That pretty much encapsulates the conservative philosophy on everything. Those that can will do and those that can't, well screw yall.

How about you want to talk about education? How about having actual national standards in education and not 50 different standards? How about mandating school class sizes to 15 students per class? Maybe that would help? How about mandating a higher wage for teachers so you get higher qualified people teaching? How about making it more difficult to become a teacher, requiring a master's degree in education for example? How about paying for that master's degree as long as the teachers spend five years teaching in an underperforming school? How about any idea that doesn't leave children in the dungeon simply because their parent or parents work and aren't involved with their children as much as those children need them? And how about education for new parents? Instead of just giving them a child tax credit, make it mandatory for them to take a parenting class every year to get a tax credit? At least then they're learning some parenting skills from an expert and they have a base of knowledge to become a good parent. Do something to change the status quo, try something.

The problem with this is that the legality or illegality of abortion doesn't stop abortion. You could overturn abortion tomorrow and there'll still be abortions so you're not going to be achieving some goal of saving the unborn. You're simply going to make it more dangerous for the mothers which is pretty much contrary to this whole thing about safeguarding women's health. You're really not safeguarding anything.

I wholeheartedly agree. I think if this were your approach, you'd find me much more agreeable to placing restrictions on abortion. I'm much more about the practicality of the issue than the ideology but it makes me sick the constant railing against abortion while we neglect the basic health care and education that would go a long way to stopping abortion. I don't think most women have abortion because they're evil, they do it because they feel that's their only alternative.

I understand the budget issue but the budget is f'd up because of special interests and because our tax rate is at historic lows. GE should never have a year in which they pay no taxes, ever. That's ridiculous. Billionaires shouldn't pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries. Hedge fund managers shouldn't get tax breaks. I'd rather feed the poor, educate the children, and provide health care to the needy than spend another cent in Afghanistan or on another carrier group or another stealth bomber or the missile freaking defense shield. We need a moneyball approach to government. We study what works and what doesn't and then we only spend money on what actually works.

I'm not justifying abortion on that basis, I'm saying your argument is horrible because abortion doesn't occur in a vacuum. How you deal with health care, education, and poverty affects abortion. If you demonstrate over and over again that health care, education, and poverty aren't priorities to you then you don't get it. Every year in statehouses across the country there are attempts to curb abortion. How often in those same statehouses is there anything new to deal with health care, education, and poverty? Nothing new or innovative or hey let's try this. Dealing with abortion in a holistic manner would be much more effective than this approach. I don't know that you can really solve something you feel is a problem until you really understand and address the causes behind it. That's my contention. Good debate.

 

The statistics look like more would be able to adopt if it was an easier process and less administrative costs up front.

My wife and I are preparing to adopt children after we have another child.

We are also going to be working with orphanages in Kenya when we move.

If you had to describe the average person/couple who adopts children how would you describe them?

From the statistics the average person/couple that adopts is married, caucasion, middle-class, religious, and who tend to be conservative politically.

I don't think some liberals like people like that raise children that grow up conservative and religious.

 

I seriously doubt that liberals are plotting against adoption because the kids would grow up religious. If you thnk so, then you are a fool.

If you think that the cost of an adoption is the biggest barrier to people wanting to adopt, I think you are mistaken. The cost of the adoption process pales in comparison to the cost of raising a child.

The adoption process is expensive because it is a legal process. It should involve a judge. The adoption process and the safeguards it supplies keeps people who are dangerous, mentally ill, or otherwise unfit from adopting a child. Are you seriously advocating doing away with that?

 

What I am advocating is using funds otherwise used for abortions to subsidize the process of adoption to cover said expenses and to give tax breaks to individuals/families who adopt.

Each year PP alone receives over 300 million for abortions alone. On top of that the abortion industry brings in over 800 million each year.

I think abortions are fought for more so because of profits more than actual women's health.

 

Why not take all the money spent by the pro-life movement on non-sensical laws that get overturned by the courts and spend it to do the same?

If you got rid of all the abortions, that's 1 million extra kids every year. Unless you think children can be raised on $1,000 over their entire childhood, the billion dollars per year you just saved is a drop in the bucket of the costs you're asking people to bear.

Not to mention the million extra families you would need to find to adopt all these kids. Assuming about 100 million households in the US, you're asking 1% of them, rich and poor, old and young, single or married, to adopt a child every single year. Do you think that's realistic?

As long as we're making up random things that have no basis in reality, maybe pro-life people are not motivated by saving babies, but simply want to fight a culture war to win religious votes.

 

Don't forget to adjust your figures to take out the mentally ill, registered sex offenders and drug felons out of the pool of potential adoptive parents. When you adjust the figures accordingly, it becomes even more preposterous.

The reality is that it would require an enormous government bureaucracy, costing well over $1B per year to care for the needs of the excess unadapted kids. I am not diametrically opposed to that, because I lean toward not having abortions. I would, however, find it interesting to see how the strong pro life crowd would react to higher taxes to pay for this as most of them also have lower taxes as their rally cry.

 

we've moved on from hypocrisy ("how can you be pro-life and oppose school lunch funding?") now to even scarier utilitarian arguments ("we don't have the means to care for them so it should be legal to eliminate them")

same reasoning they use for putting animals down at the shelter

where is our humanity?

 

Right there with your shame and your solutions to societal problems, nowhere to be found.

 

Go ahead and make the statement that you would favor higher taxes to provide for the resulting children and I can respect that statement. Otherwise, you are speaking in theory and being hypocritical yourself. All I am saying is that if somebody feels that strongly about it, they should be willing to put their money where their mouth is.

 

You REPUGNANT, BIGOTED, IDIOTIC, conservative MAGGOTS are an EMBARRASSMENT to civil society and modernity.

You might have won this battle but know that you are on the wrong side of history and YOU WILL LOSE THIS WAR EVENTUALLY.

 

the ball is now in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. extreme as they might be, I'd like them to uphold something that directly challenges Roe. v. Wade.

if they do, the Supreme Court will probably notice some inconsistencies.

 

when the children are born, do they default to parasite mode, or do they get a grace period?

 

Barriers? Facilities that are equipped for worse case scenarios when a patient is perhaps hemorrhaging? Maybe you don't believe it happens, but I listened to hours of testimony from women who DID face serious complications and were given no assistance by the abortionist. And once again, you're making the issue of abortion a political one, Republicans don't do enough here, don't do enough there, well there are two parties in this system, the minority party hasn't offered up any other solutions rather than throw money at independent school districts that time and time again show they are inept.

First of all, I don't even LIKE vouchers, I think they only going to exacerbate the situation by taking away the population from those poor schools -- taking their funding with them.

Second of all, 15 to a class sounds like a wonderful plan in a wonderful world full of an unlimited sum of money, but even the billions in the RDF wouldn't be able to sustain a growing population and an increasing Medicaid program that swallows nearly a third of our budget.

No, just because we disagree on the affect of our current programs doesn't mean we want them dismantled and for those who can't cut it to die. What is your solution? To increase entitlements? To increase Medicaid and Medicare? What about those of us who PAY for our insurance? What is the point? Do we all deserve basic health care in a modern civilized country? Abso-f$%#ing-lutely. But I don't want us to throw a trillion dollars into a system that has historically been wasteful and a poor quality of care. Expanding a system that less and less doctors are taking each and every year.

Are conservatives perfect in every approach to solve the problems of inequity? No, and neither are liberals. But don't for a second pretend like conservatives don't care just as much about those affected by any policy. You can not solve every problem in one fell swoop.

I am sorry that I fundamentally disagree with the decision of the court to ignore the government's responsibility to protect life, liberty, and property. So in regards to the 20 week ban, it comes down to what point do you consider it a life. You have to draw the mark somewhere, unless you believe, like the expert witness testified Monday, that should those fetuses survive it be up to the mother, her family, and her God to decide what should be done. Literally saying, that even though this child has survived abortion, the mothers intentions to kill it should prevail.

Personally, I believe it it develops a heartbeat, roughly 19 days? Unless you've been raped, or in one ridiculously awesome near month long sex orgy, you would PROBABLY realize you'd had sex by that time, right? Oh, but people should be able to have sex wherever and whenever they want and should it spawn another human being, well we can just take care of that problem with a pair of forceps or a vacuum.

I don't deny our society has reached a point where sex is everywhere and kids are being exposed to it at an earlier age. We DO need better evidence based sex education in our schools. We do need to teach people the consequences of engaging in unsafe sex, but just because their mistakes, their CHOICES, result in something that could ruin their lives (I do recognize what bringing a child into this world means), should not constitute the right to END ANOTHER HUMAN BEINGS LIFE.

I consider it life. My opinion is that it is not an undue burden and most of the clinics will remain open. Those that can not, well good thing they already perform so very few abortions, because they can stay open and continue to provide those very necessary and non life-taking services to these women.

I don't see any Democrats in Texas pushing for any of these solutions. And conservatives have passed legislation to attempt to address these issues. Just because they are not grand and sexy bills doesn't mean it isn't happening. Of course they should do more, we should always pressure our elected officials to do better, regardless of party affiliation.

No, it certainly doesn't. However, it is about women's health as well as the health of the human growing inside of her. I use the word human to remind people that while the word fetus may sound like an alien, it is a very real person, with a very real DNA, and a very real heartbeat.
You are concluding that every clinic will close down and there will be scores of women who will have to drive for days to receive their perfectly legal service. I don't agree with that premise. Certainly a few may be forced to either close down, or stop providing abortions and instead focus on the other very important women's health needs, but the majority should remain open and they will be equipped to handle any of the complications I heard described in the hours of testimony Monday. And for the 20 week mark, we are saving 500 or so lives a year.

And I heard at least one pledge from a senator who asked for an interim study to address just these issues! There is ALWAYS room for improvement, liberals are very good at reminding us of that. But there will always be poor, there will always be people at the bottom, our society allows anyone to make it out. Don't tell me you can't because I know plenty of people who came out of impoverished neighborhoods. Our society in general doesn't stress education, is that the governments fault? Parenting is at an all time low. I understand women want to work because they are equal as human beings, but raising children IS a job. A FULL TIME job for the early years. I feel like society has given us this impression that any family can survive with two full time working adults. That isn't just minority families, white families as well, who are their role models when they don't have a parent around? CHARLES BARKLEY?!

Well in respect to Texas, I don't believe we are giving out these kinds of lucrative tax cuts. I'm sure we have some deal with Lockheed, but nothing to the deals GE and Halliburton have with the federal government. I agree with you entirely, it is ridiculous to let them profit this much when we give them tax subsidies in the grandest scale. I wish we could hold those subsidies for when they are necessary, when businesses are struggling, when they are doing fine, they should expire. The biggest revenue generator for Texas with no state income tax is the VAC and we can only control that with policies that promote business growth.

I think you haven't spent much time keeping up with state government. There are very much efforts to address these things, there are studies every interim, there are hearings from experts across the world. For instance, last summer there was a hearing on Education that addressed the very issue of classroom size, and world wide it has been shown that small class size does not automatically equate to better education. There are bills filed every single session on these issues. Democrats have been unable to come up with any other idea but to increase funding, and every time they did that in the past, it failed.

To reiterate, I agree. We certainly need to look further into the causes of these issues and do whatever we can to stop them before they happen. Education, non abortion related health care, social programs that assist people to get OFF of them. I would prefer to see a safety net program that has an "exit strategy." These are not easy issues to discuss, nor to solve, and that's why politicians of BOTH sides are hesitant to address them seriously.

 

Roe v. Wade is relevant here, but the Supreme Court decision that is most on point is the later case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

 

Pretty much. If you're going to force people to have children, then they should be able to force you to support those children all the way to adulthood.

 

Or we get more people to contribute to society, get our economy going so maybe people can afford to pay taxes, and afford insurance?

Or we could just let the economy rot, push energy programs that don't create jobs, don't do anything to realistically reduce our energy needs, create an unstable atmosphere for business owners who have to decide whether to expand (hire someone), or hold off in case the economy tanks or they raise taxes. We wouldn't need to such huge programs if we had a government that allowed people to survive instead of restricting their opportunities.

Yes, Democrats are just as responsible.

 

No one is forcing anyone to get pregnant. Unless of course you are raped. The pregnancy has already begun. The life has been created. Government had nothing to do with that.

 

well, it's why I posted a picture of Kennedy.

I don't think anyone could ever argue that a ban is not an undue burden on the constitutional right afforded to women to abort before the period of viability (as established by Roe v Wade and confirmed by Casey among others)---but that's apparently a popular trend of thought in this thread.