24-hour wait for abortion near law: State Senate's OK sets up final action
Little by little, piece by piece, nail by nail, women in Texas are losing their right to abortion. When last I checked, Roe v. Wade was still the law of the land, but here in Texas, those who would see the return of back alley abortionists are nibbling around the edges.
House Bill 15, the "Women's Right to Know Act," is expected to gain final passage today. The Senate made only one small change to the House version, and sponsor Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, said he thinks the House will concur and send the bill to the governor.
The last significant piece of abortion legislation passed in Texas was in 1999. It required teenage girls to notify their parents before terminating a pregnancy. An effort to require pregnant teens to get written consent from their parents before having an abortion was among hundreds of bills that died last week in the House.
The bill approved Tuesday would require women to wait 24 hours after being provided with information about the medical risks of abortion and childbirth; photographs and descriptions of fetal development stages; and a listing of adoption agencies and other services for women who choose to have the baby.
Of course, the 24-hour waiting period has little to do with giving women time to consider their options. All it provides is a legally-sanctioned period in which the state can harass and cajole women into changing their minds. I would agree that, while education is a good thing, in this case it is clearly education in pursuit of a political goal.
"We're pretty thrilled about this. This is something that has been a long time coming," said Joe Pojman, executive director of Greater Austin Right to Life. "Our goal is that no woman should seek an abortion because she feels she has no alternatives.
I find it interesting that the State of Texas will be responsible for printing and providing the literature. We don't have enough money for children's health insurance, for mental health care, or our schools, and yet there seems to be plenty of money available to attempt to convince women not to have an abortion. Is this really the wisest use of our scarce tax dollars?
"I think it's definitely a sign of the agenda of a socially conservative Legislature," countered Kae McLaughlin, executive director of the Texas Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. "It's going to place a real hardship on women in communities that don't have abortion providers, with the 24-hour waiting period."
Abortion providers can be found in only 15 of Texas' 254 counties. The waiting period will be particularly difficult for women who have to travel, take time off work or find child care, McLaughlin said.
"It's going to be very difficult for women to find a place in Texas that will perform them," she said.
Roe v. Wade is not going to be defeated by a frontal assault. In the end, it will be chipped away, slowly but methodically, until a woman's right to a safe abortion becomes a right in name only. Assuming that women need more information is merely the anti-choice lobby's latest weapon of choice in working toward their ultimate goal of making abortion both unavailable and illegal.
Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, D-Austin, argued against the bill. "Women are not too ignorant. Women are not too helpless," he said....
Barrientos tried to amend the bill to exempt women who are victims of rape or incest, or those whose fetuses have severe abnormalities from the 24-hour waiting period.
He asked, "Who am I or who are you or who is the Texas government" to tell a woman who is in one of those situations that she should have the baby?
Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville, said that women in those difficult situations have "kept the child and counted that child as a blessing."
Barrientos' amendment was voted down 19-11.
As a whole, HB15 is not egregiously and openly anti-female, but perhaps that is what makes it so sinister. Before long, women will no longer be able to exercise any measure of control over their reproductive options. When that day comes, the anti-choice lobby will perhaps be able to look back at HB15 as the straw that broke the camel's back. We will return to a timewhen abortion will be available only those with the financial means to obtain one on the QT. In the end, HB15 will legalize state-sanctioned discrimination and denial of medical services to poor women- not something I would be proud of if I were a Republican legislator.
