Pretend Legislation

State legislatures have a bad habit of making up non-existent problems to limit constitutionally-protected activity they don’t like and to take away the ability of those who might vote against these incumbents from accessing the ballot box in the first place. We’ve already addressed the non-problem of voter and voter-registration fraud in the United States – the given and fully unjustified excuse for the spate of new voter ID requirements that eliminate mostly older, urban and minority voters (people without driver’s license). The instances of actual and reported fraudulent voting incidents were too few to create the slightest statistical impact on any recent election.

For those who oppose “free choice” in the abortion controversy, they have selected another path to shut down clinics or limit the time within which a woman may opt to abort her fetus. Texas recently passed a series of tough new laws and regulations to apply to abortion-providers in that state. The excuse, the sponsoring and supporting legislators (and the governor) gave, was a deep concern that these clinics were not able to provide a sufficiently safe environment for their clients.

But the statistical reality in Texas – the truth if you will – was altogether different. Not that inspections showed 100% perfection, but there were no instances of any serious or meaningful violations that remotely threatened the health and safety of the women who sought their services. “State auditors identified 19 regulatory violations that they said presented a risk to patient safety at six licensed abortion clinics that are not ambulatory surgical centers in Texas. None of the violations was severe enough to warrant financial penalties, according to the Department of State Health Services, which deemed the facilities’ corrective action plans sufficient to protect patients.

“And between 2008 and 2013, the Texas Medical Board, which regulates the state’s physicians, took action against just three who performed abortions — all for administrative infractions that did not involve criminal practices or late-term abortions.

“‘The point of this legislation was to make abortion inaccessible,’ said Amy Hagstrom Miller, chief executive officer of Whole Woman’s Health, which operates five abortion facilities in Texas. ‘It wasn’t about safety, because there is no safety problem around abortion in Texas.’” New York Times, September 15^th.

Statistics, truth and facts are easily trumped by opinion, particularly religiously motivated passion that simply will not accept contradictory facts… the same kinds of contradictory facts that too many Texas textbook reviewers cannot accept when it comes to man-induced climate change and teaching evolution as scientific fact. With some of this nation’s greatest and most progressive universities, from the University of Texas itself and prestigious schools like Rice University, with some of the best teaching hospitals in the country, Texas seems mired in a legislative mire of arrogant ignorance and a profound need to meddle in the personal and private lives of its citizens.

“Although most of the state’s recent inspection findings point to administrative errors as opposed to medical ones, abortion opponents have not been deterred. Beginning Oct. 29, Texas will ban all abortions after 20 weeks of gestation and require abortion facilities to have a physician with admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. In a year, additional rules will require abortion facilities to meet the structural guidelines for ambulatory surgical centers, which include wider hallways and preoperative and postoperative waiting rooms.

“Emily Horne, a lobbyist for the anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life, said the conditions auditors found in the last year could have easily led to women getting sick or injured, and a ‘lower standard of care’ could result if inspectors ‘find these problems and do nothing about them… The clinics need to be safer,’ she said. ‘You can’t advocate for more abortion that is unsafe’” NY Times. That Americans have differing opinions about conservative vs. liberal issues is the American way… but knowingly lying through your teeth to get your way shouldn’t be… and these days too often is.

I'm Peter Dekom, and the lying seemingly necessary to pass these legislations only make the legislation seem that much more unsustainable and ill-conceived.