Kyle City Limits
by BRENDA STEWART
I had an odd sense of déjà vu as I read the lead article on the front page of the Sunday Statesman a couple of days ago. As Perry attempts to shift the focus away from the $27 billion debt he has racked up in his tenure as governor, he was, once again, whipping the religious right into a frenzy as a press-catching diversion.
In the grey morning light, the entire article smacked queasily familiar so I went back through my files and, sure enough, this is an annual grandstanding event for Perry. In 2010, there he was once again, smack dab in the middle of yet another religious rally, addressing the crowd in his political capacity as governor, with absolutely no regard to the issue of separation of church and state.
Last year, with requisite dramatic flair he had proclaimed, “We love life in Texas!” The irony that he has personally presided over the execution of more than 200 people in this state was obviously lost on this crowd as he strutted and mugged and they shrieked and chanted.
This year, vowing to ram through a bill requiring a sonogram for any woman seeking an abortion, this politician, who has noisily flung his fist in the air demanding government stay out of health care, has pompously decided that women, evidently, need a bit of that governmental intervention. To add insult to injury, he then suggests that his casuistic legislation would enable us feeble-minded women the capacity to actually understand “the full impact of her decision.” Really.
Twenty five years ago I worked as a counselor in a woman’s health clinic, offering support and information to women who had, for innumerable reasons, found themselves unexpectedly pregnant. It was my responsibility to listen to their story and then steer them to professionals best qualified to deal with whatever decision they reached. Prenatal counseling, adoption services, pregnancy termination information, sonograms, birth control alternatives, it was all offered and could be utilized at the woman’s request. Her request. And, believe me, they understood the full impact of their decision.
The women I counseled were you and me and our moms and sisters and daughters and they each had unique histories and circumstances. Some were sad, some terrified, some weary to their core but regardless of their situation, they each had three viable options available: Continue the pregnancy to term and assume parental responsibility; continue the pregnancy to term and relinquish parental responsibility; or terminate the pregnancy. Three options. By law.
Looking at the newspaper photographs from the two rallies, I recognized the generic faces in the crowd. These were the same folks who would amass on Saturday mornings in front of our clinic, casting judgement upon women as they sought information and health care, grappling with one of the most critical and personal decisions of their lives.
I shudder at the memory of those hate-filled faces. The sanctimonious sneer and the white-knuckled grip on their Bibles as they themselves persecuted. Waving American flags as they chanted for the denial of liberty to women and their fundamental and legal right to make decisions regarding their lives. Their goal was to refuse these women their choice of options, regardless of their circumstances. They had anointed themselves the moral authority and, in this delusion, felt divinely qualified to determine the path onto which they would force these women to walk. Same faces, different venue.
In another ironic twist, in an attempt to alleviate some of Perry’s astronomical debt it looks like they are going to zero out Public Health in Texas Communities which funded diet, exercise and teen pregnancy reduction programs (we’re #1, we’re #1) and the TEA’s contribution to student pregnancy centers. They even cut their own abstinence-only education program to decrease teen birth rate (see above) and sexually transmitted disease rates. And, the real kicker? They zeroed out the Health and Human Services “Alternatives to Abortion” counseling which provided low-income women with parenting information and support services.
How about this? If the Pied Perry and his followers don’t want to invoke free will in their lives, so be it. Don’t have an abortion. Hell, avoid it all together and don’t even have sex. It’s not my business. But stay out of the rest of the free world’s doctors offices and examining rooms and tend to your own set of circumstances.
In one final slap in the face of respecting the dignity of women, Perry had the audacity in his 2010 address, to assert that we should “...stand in front of God with your message of anti-choice.” Read it again. Not “anti-abortion.” Not even “pro-life.” He is anti-choice. Against a woman’s legal right to choose what happens to her own body. So incredibly arrogant.
