Blog | Subscribe | Free Trial | Contact Us | Cart | Donate | Planned Giving
Log In | Search
facebook
rss
twitter
  • CURRENT
    • Spring 2023
    • Symposium: Where Do We Go from Dobbs?
    • NEWSworthy: What’s Happening and What It Means to You
    • Blog
    • INSISTING ON LIFE
    • Pastoral Reflections
    • About Us
    • HLF In The News
  • DINNER
    • GREAT DEFENDER OF LIFE DINNER 2023
    • HOST COMMITTEE Great Defender of Life Dinner 2023
    • Great Defender of Life 2023 Dinner Ticket
    • Great Defender of Life 2023 Young Adult / Student Ticket
    • DINNER JOURNAL ADVERTISING 2023
  • ARCHIVE
    • Archive Spotlight
    • ISSUES IN HTML FORMAT
  • LEGACY
    • Planned Giving: Wills, Trusts, and Gifts of Stock
  • SHOP
    • Cart

Articles

Over 45 years of Life-Defending Articles At Your Fingertips
0 Comment

Texas Abortion Bill Moves Forward

12 Jul 2013
William Murchison
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

     

           The Texas Senate votes Friday or Saturday on an anti-abortion bill the House approved Wednesday, 96-49. Declares Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst: “We’re not in the filibuster range right now, and we’re going to pass this bill.” When it happens, Gov. Rick Perry will add his cheerful endorsement to the process. Abortions later than the 20th week of pregnancy (rather than the 24th, under present law) are supposed to cease.

          Of course they won’t, because the “reproductive rights” lobby—which claims to speak for all women except, possibly, Michelle Bachmann—means immediately to contest the law in court as a usurpation of the Roe v. Wade regime. 

          That might be called the worst of the matter, but it isn’t, really, because the debate in Texas, ever since Wendy Davis’ pink-sneakered filibuster against a previous incarnation of the measure, has reminded us how tightly shut are multifarious minds to the prospective value of unborn lives.

           The acclaim garnered by Davis was bad enough: all the hootin’ and hollerin’ over how one Democratic woman shut down the legislative process for just long enough to let the session expire. Davis the other night reminded us how sadly sterile is the rhetoric of pro-choice. “Our partisan leadership in charge,” said she, “does not respect the rights of all Texans to make decisions about themselves and their bodies.”

            Well, as we know, all of that is pro-choice boilerplate: “bodies,” “rights,” “decisions.” Nothing—not a syllable—about incipient lives and what might be owed them. The mental depth at which such ideologically freighted assumptions are buried is so great you have to wonder if we’ll ever dig out.

          Then there was the woman testifying against the Texas bill a few days ago. As she saw it, the law’s proponents wanted to “force your way inside the bodies of Texas women. . . . degrading women and girls to sex objects and brood mares and bald eagles and leather wallets.” (As to what she means by “bald eagles and leather wallets,” I have no clue; but you get the part about brood mares.) By strengthening protections for the unborn, lawmakers “have radicalized thousands of us.” And hear this, all you oppressors and assorted barbarians: “Women and their allies are coming for you.”

          Boy, that’s high-toned debate. Madison and Hamilton would have loved it, right?  

          The back-and-forth over HB2  makes plain that the “reproduction rights” folk who started the clamor that won’t go away, talk in their own language about ideas and ideals that attain clarity only in their own minds. “Ears have they and hear not,” as I believe the Psalmist observed.


2,646 people have visited this page. 1 have visited this page today.
About the Author
William Murchison

William Murchison, a former syndicated columnist, is a senior editor of the Human Life Review. He will soon finish his book on moral restoration in our time.

Social Share

  • google-share

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Comments will not be posted until approved by a moderator in an effort to prevent spam and off-topic responses.

*
*

captcha *

Get the Human Life Review

subscribe to HLR

Recent Posts

North Carolina and Nebraska Pass 12-week Abortion Bans

24 May 2023

Republicans kill pro-life bills in South Carolina and Nebraska

08 May 2023

Friday's Supreme Court Abortion Pill Ruling (Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA)

25 Apr 2023

CURRENT ISSUE

Anne Conlon Anne Hendershott B G Carter Brian Caulfield Christopher White Clarke D. Forsythe Colleen O’Hara Connie Marshner David Mills David Poecking David Quinn Diane Moriarty Dr. Donald DeMarco Edward Mechmann Edward Short Ellen Wilson Fielding Fr. Gerald E. Murray George McKenna Hadley Arkes Helen Alvaré Jane Sarah Jason Morgan Joe Bissonnette John Grondelski Kristan Hawkins Laura Echevarria Madeline Fry Schultz Maria McFadden Maffucci Mary Meehan Mary Rose Somarriba Meaghan Bond Nat Hentoff Nicholas Frankovich Patrick J. Flood Peter Pavia Rev. George G. Brooks Rev. Paul T. Stallsworth Stephen Vincent Tara Jernigan Ursula Hennessey Victor Lee Austin Vincenzina Santoro W. Ross Blackburn Wesley J. Smith William Murchison

Pages

  • Issues
  • Human Life Foundation Blog
  • About Us
  • Free Trial Issue
  • Contact Us
  • Shop
  • Planned Giving
  • GREAT DEFENDER OF LIFE DINNER

Follow Us On Twitter

Tweets by @HumanLifeReview

Find Us On Facebook

Human Life Review/Foundation

Search our Website

Contact Information

The Human Life Foundation, Inc.
The Human Life Review
271 Madison Avenue, Room 1005
New York, New York 10016
(212) 685-5210

Copyright (c) The Human Life Foundation.