Texas has been on a roll in its efforts to restrict women’s access to reproductive rights for the last forty-plus years. It is the metaphorical ground zero in the fight for abortion rights—as Roe v. Wade was first filed there back in 1970. And since conservative politicians there have always used religious doctrine combined with power and influence to try to legislate what a woman can do with her body, it comes as no surprise that at this very moment they are still trying to pass a number of bills designed to limit women’s access to abortion.
Texas’s Republican Lt. Governor Dan Patrick forced a 30-day special session of the state Legislature starting July 17. It was, he said, to pass the state’s infamous bathroom legislation that would prohibit transgender people from using the bathroom that best aligns with their gender. But, considering it is Texas, and conservative lawmakers in the state are infamous for their efforts to curb abortion access, it’s no surprise that the special session includes multiple bills aimed at limiting women’s reproductive rights.
In some ways, it really doesn’t matter whether or not the special session is to pass the bathroom bill or restrict abortion. Both of these things are utterly cruel and unnecessary—designed to further marginalize vulnerable populations. But the tenacity of these Republicans who simply refuse to give up their ridiculous, decades-long obsessive crusade against a woman’s right to privacy and to choose what she does with her body (which remains a constitutionally protected right) is both bizarre and frightening. There are multiple abortion bills up for consideration in this special session. Among them are:
Senate Bill 4 would ban state agencies from signing contracts with health care groups that provide abortions; Senate Bill 8, would require a separate premium for insurance coverage for non-emergency abortions (with no exception for rape or incest survivors); Senate Bill 10 would require abortion providers to submit detailed reports on any abortion complication directly to the state within 72 hours.
House Bill 86, which would revoke the medical licenses of any doctor who performs an abortion in Texas with narrow exceptions for the life of the mother and the fetus, is also up for debate during the special session, but it is largely considered symbolic because it could not withstand a constitutional challenge.
from Daily Kos http://ift.tt/2vc8ZGb
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