Governor wants people with higher family values to put Texas in the rearview mirror

Governor Perry cheerfully signed disastrous legislation for Texas families on Sunday. He did so in a religious facility, blithely blending church and state in both message and venue. And then he topped it off by pointing out that folks who place a higher value on marriage than he and his supporters should just go elsewhere.

You couldn't make this stuff up in your worst nightmares.

The bill signing was for SB 419, which is actually the continuation legislation for the Board of Medical Examiners. The bill is part of the regular Sunset Review process that happens with state agencies wherein there is a review of their operations and consideration of revisions to those operations before a proactive vote to continue the agency--or dismantle it. The BME legislation is pretty much "must pass" legislation.

While the legislature could have voted the whole bill down, there really would have been hell to pay. Physicians would have faced all sorts of licensing problems in Texas and in reciprocal licensing with other states. Disciplinary actions, such as they are, would have been problematic. The BME covers other groups besides physicians, so there were quite a few dominoes in play here.

The clever move to attach anti-abortion legislation to the bill gave the provision some major protection. The provision itself sounds like a nice-to-do thing because it just requires that a parent provide written consent for an unmarried minor's abortion. What's wrong with a parent consenting to a child's decisions about health? What's not to like about making sure that there is a paper trail? Plenty, of course. And the provision goes further in prohibiting third trimester abortions in all but the most extreme circumstances: the mother will die, the mother will suffer brain damage or paralysis, the fetus is brain-damaged.

Here's the actual language:

A physician commits an offense when, he/she:

(18) performs an abortion on a woman who is pregnant with a viable unborn child during the third trimester of the pregnancy unless:
A) the abortion is necessary to prevent the death of the woman;
(B) the viable unborn child has a severe, irreversible brain impairment; or
(C) the woman is diagnosed with a significant likelihood of suffering imminent severe, irreversible brain damage or imminent severe, irreversible paralysis; or
(19) performs an abortion on an unemancipated minor without the written consent of the child's parent, managing conservator, or legal guardian or without a court order, as provided by Section 33.003 or 33.004, Family Code, authorizing the minor to consent to the abortion, unless the physician concludes that on the basis of the physician's good faith clinical judgment, a condition exists that complicates the medical condition of the pregnant minor and necessitates the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or to avoid a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function and that there is insufficient time to obtain the consent of the child's parent, managing conservator, or legal guardian.
(c) The board shall adopt the forms necessary for physicians to obtain the consent required for an abortion to be performed on an unemancipated minor under Subsection (a). The form executed to obtain consent or any other required documentation must be retained by the physician until the later of the fifth anniversary of the date of the minor's majority or the seventh anniversary of the date the physician received or created the documentation for the record.

I cannot imagine anyone wanting to have an abortion just for fun. I cannot imagine a mother--young or fully adult--who would want to give up a child in any but the most extreme circumstances. But "extreme" may vary from one woman to another. What one can handle physically may be much more than one can handle emotionally, or financially, or circumstantially. I cannot imagine having to make such a difficult decision without the emotional support of those who love me and care about my well being. The problem is, of course, that those would would fulfill such a role are not always the parents of the young woman who needs the help. Abusive families, dysfunctional families, hostile families abound in our society. This legislation doesn't make those families any better. Nor does it make it more likely that fewer young women will desire an abortion. Indeed, it may increase the likelihood of a speedier return to those good old days of back alley abortions.

Judicial bypass still remains. If you want to do something positive now, look at Jane's Due Process. They help young women in crisis find the help they need--not necessarily abortions--help.

Of course, there's still that interesting provision that applies to adults. Even when an adult woman and her husband decide that the risk of continuing a pregnancy is too great or that they cannot take care of a child with serious birth defects, the Texas Legislature and now the Governor want to step into that family decision to make their own rules about how that family will have to survive in the future. Perhaps Mama won't be brain damaged or paralyzed, but she can get along with a damaged heart or kidneys. So says Will Harnett. Maybe the child will not be brain-impaired, but will have any one of a number of serious birth defects that will force the family into poverty, deprive their other children of any attention from exhausted parents, or create a living hell for an perpetually sick, or worse, unwanted child.

I don't know what the circumstances would be that would lead me to make a decision to terminate a pregancy that I had carried for 6 months already. How could I cope with the crashing defeat of all my hopes and dreams for that child? And yet, none of us knows what our breaking point will be. We certainly don't know what it will be for another family.

And then we come to that other part of the Governor's bill signing. This was not a signing of legislation that required his signature. Nope. It was a political photo op--at a religious venue--to make sure that everyone knows that he, too, is a promoter of hate--in Jesus' name.

HJR 6 is a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban, yet again, same-sex marriages and anything that vaguely looks like it. Just as the previous bill cuts gaping wounds in Texas families, this one purports to support family values while destroying families. Same sex families. Common law families. Private contracts that create some semblance of legal security for couples. Even the dignity of dying in the presence of someone you love. These will be wiped out by the passage of this constitutional amendment.

It's all sick and sickening. And the Governor just put the icing on the cake when he said:

"Texans have made a decision about marriage and if there is some other state that has a more lenient view than Texas then maybe that's a better place for them to live."

One of the ministers attending the signing whined that those who oppose these bills must want people of faith out of the public square. Funny thing. I didn't really want that before. Now I do. Me and Jesus--just can't stand those hypocrites. Maybe they should find another state to live in.