What’s Next in Texas After the Demise of Roe Vs. Wade

As a former reporter, I have seen what happens to unwanted children. Recently I worked on a human sex trafficking documentary in Houston Texas. Guess whom the traffickers are going after. Kids in foster care, or those who are neglected or homeless or abandoned or gay or whose parents are in prison or single or under tremendous economic stress. 

We know which women in America seek abortions according to the Guttmacher institute. She is already a mother, in her late twenties, low income; unmarried and is in her first six weeks of pregnancy. Nearly all abortions happen in the first trimester.  They don’t want to bring a child into this world, mostly because they can’t afford it financially, emotionally and socially because they may not have a supportive partner.

Next question is… which state in the United States has some of the worst child welfare systems for children? According to the Annie Casey foundation “Kids Count” report on children Texas is in the bottom 10. Texas is the largest “red” state in the United States.

Today most of our Texas leaders are celebrating their pro “birth” agenda.

They celebrate Friday’s decision by the U.S. Supreme court that there is no constitutional right to an abortion. They (primarily men) are deciding in the year 2022 what women must do with their health and bodies in our state. They see themselves as righteous and so Christian. They believe they have the moral high ground. They have been strategizing for decades to undo Roe Vs. Wade and they won.

• It makes no sense that while they don’t want a fetus to be killed, they don’t seem to mind kids are getting shot all over America. Our foster care system in Texas is broken; recently more than 200 foster kids were sleeping in offices of Child protective services because there were no beds for them in private or group homes. Homeless, runaways and rejected gay or trans children struggle in our state because they were either abandoned by their parents, society or the politicians that are now celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision.

Here is my argument. If you care so much about restricting abortion, why don’t you learn the statistics? According to the council of Foreign relations, between 2015 and 2019, the average abortion rate in countries with generally legal abortion declined by 43 percent. By contrast countries with severe restrictions on abortion, the average abortion rate increased by around 12 percent. The countries that tend to restrict abortion tend to be autocracies.

Let’s not lose sight of what you the pro birth proponents want. They want less or no abortions. What they are doing will have the opposite effect and it will likely kill a lot of women.

It appears we in America are moving towards becoming an autocracy.  If more than 60 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal, or that we should restrict some guns, why did this happen? Precisely because we are moving away from being a democracy.  The minority is ruling the majority. 

America has gone off the rails by the extreme right and the extreme left. While the extreme right has been working for decades to reach this victory over abortion, the extreme left has been sleep at the wheel, wasting time over identity politics, cancel and woke culture and illegal immigration.

In Texas the republican platform couldn’t be more insane. They are spreading the “Big Lie” the election was stolen without ANY PROOF. They want to secede. They say homosexuality is an abnormal life choice. They restrict voting rights and make it easier to get guns. They ignore climate change and most importantly, since we are on the subject, they ban all abortion from the moment of fertilization.

What does that mean? There is no exception for rape or incest. That means if you are underage and your daddy got you pregnant you have no recourse. If a criminal raped you, you have no recourse. How cruel is that and how did we get here? Most Texans voted for these men who chose to do this to us women.

Yes not only do these male politicians want you to leave the state for an abortion, they don’t want you to use contraceptives either.

They who constantly repeat they don’t want government intrusion in our lives, are hypocritically telling you what you should do about your life and health.

They are our rulers. They are the autocrats who are deciding for you.  They are the ones that will criminalize you and your health care providers.  They are the new Texas “noble men, ”  “Kings” the new Texas royalty. They have the power until you take it back.

For those conservative politicians who constantly remind us they don’t want government intrusion, can you explain why you can decide for us women what we should do with our health?

I don’t condone abortion. I don’t like it. But like most Americans, I believe it is a woman’s choice. She can talk to her doctor or discuss it with God or whatever she believes in but it is her life. She can be the person spiritually, emotionally and physically responsible for her choice, not a politician.

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If you feel strongly about this, become politically active. Vote for those who agree with you.  And don’t believe for a second this is over.

Justice Clarence Thomas who benefitted from laws protecting interracial marriage now opened the door to revisiting same sex marriage and contraception.  If we don’t wake up and vote, the Supreme Court and the politicians will decide your life for you.

Patricia Gras is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning journalist. She is the founder and producer of the online series Passion Time.

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Posted: June 29, 2022 at 2:59 am