Are you angry yet?

Today Governor Rick Perry signed House Bill 2 into law.  This Bill makes abortion after 20 weeks illegal with no exceptions.  It also makes it almost impossible for the vast majority of women's clinics in the State to afford to remain open.  This means that the majority of low-income women in Texas will lose access to their health care.  I'm not talking about abortions, I'm talking about things like well-woman visits, pre-natal care, and screenings for various forms of cancer.  So not only will women be forced to have babies that they may not be able to afford (financially, emotionally, etc.), but they will have to do so without basic medical care.

Are you angry yet? 

On the heels of this, three Texas State Legislators have now introduced House Bill 59.  This bill not only bans abortions after detection of a fetal heartbeat (which can happen as early as six weeks, which is before many women even realize that they are pregnant), but requires that the doctor do what is necessary to determine if there is a fetal heartbeat present, which means that they will be performing trans-vaginal ultrasounds as that is often the only way to detect a fetal heartbeat that early.  That is, in my opinion, government mandated rape.

Are you angry yet? 

Texas is an "Abstinence Works" State, which is statistically a lie as Texas rates third in the country for underage pregnancies (ages 15 to 19).  Our birth rate in that age range is 63.1 births per 1,000 which is well above the national rate of 41.5 births per 1,000.  Our young girls have a greater chance of getting pregnant as shown by Texas' teen pregnancy rate of 88 per 1,000 as opposed to the national rate of 70 per 1,000.  Texas also has the "honor" of being 12th in the country when it comes to teen cases of HIV.  All of this is possible because while Texas ALLOWS sex education, it does not require such classes.  The schools that do have sex education are required to teach abstinence over other forms of prevention.  Per the Texas State Educational Code the curriculum must:

• present abstinence from sexual activity as the preferred choice of behavior in relationship to all sexual activity for unmarried persons of school age;
• devote more attention to abstinence from sexual activity than to any other behavior;
• emphasize that abstinence from sexual activity, if used consistently and correctly, is the only method that is 100% effective in preventing pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), and the emotional trauma associated with adolescent sexual activity;
• direct adolescents to a standard of behavior in which abstinence from sexual activity before marriage is the most effective way to prevent pregnancy, STDs, and infection with HIV or AIDS; and
• teach contraception and condom use in terms of human use reality rates instead of theoretical laboratory rates, if instruction on contraception and condoms is included in curriculum content. (See SIECUS page and links therein for more information.)

So what this means is that we are lying to our children and then wondering why it isn't working.


Are you angry yet? 

And then, to top everything off, the State Legislature claims to be doing this to protect womens' health.  One would think, though, that if they were so concerned about the health of their citizens, they wouldn't be cutting health care costs with their current slash and burn policies.  In the past eight years the Governor and his lackies in the Legislature have cut hundreds of thousands of low-income Texans from government-sponsored insurance plans such as Medicaid and The Children's Health Insurance Program.  That doesn't even bring into play the fact that over 6.5 million Texas citizens are working full-time jobs and yet have NO health insurance at all.  Tell me again where this shows a concern for Texas citizens and their health?  Because from here it looks more like an attack on our health instead.

Are you angry yet? 

This wave of extremism is taking the country by storm and this storm will leave death and destruction in its wake.  I'm not just talking about theoretical death, but real death, as in the deaths of women who are so desperate that they will do anything to end a pregnancy.  I'm talking about the deaths of the women who don't get adequate pre-natal care and die from pregnancy complications.  I'm talking about the deaths of young men and women who don't fully understand their options when it comes to protecting themselves from HIV and sexually transmitted diseases along with protecting from unwanted pregnancy.  This wave of extremism which is designed specifically for punishing women who are sexually active will destroy lives and the people who are promulgating it not only don't care, but will celebrate the fates of the "wanton and loose women" who are their victims.

Are you angry yet? 

The time for sitting to the side and talking is over.  It is time to act.  We have to take our country back from this overly vocal minority and pull it back to the center.  Extremists on both sides are screaming so loudly that the rest of us are being drowned out, and the only way to end that is to get louder.  We can get louder by protesting, but we can also get louder by using the ballot box.  It is time to take our government back and to put an end to this rampant extremism.  It is time to reclaim our city governments, our State governments, and our national government.

Are you angry yet?  Whether you are a man or a woman, you should be very angry by this point.  And you should do something about it.

Vote.  Register others to vote.  Write your representatives and make your voices heard.  DO something, don't just sit back and make Tweets or Facebook posts about your outrage.  Step up and take a stand.  The time is now, the person is you.  Get angry and use that anger to change the world.