Category Archives: Essays

Once again my home state of Texas has proven that it’s run by a pack of extremist right-wing morons.  In the latest attack on individual rights from the gang that claims to cherish personal freedom, State Attorney General Ken Paxton has demanded that a woman named Kate Cox must go through with her current pregnancy – a pregnancy her own doctor has already said could be detrimental to her health.  The fetus already has a confirmed disorder, and proceeding with the pregnancy could render Cox infertile.  More frightening, though, is that it could kill her.  She’s been to a local emergency room more than once over the past several weeks.  Now she’s left the state to have the abortion her doctor recommended.  Her whereabouts remain unknown – and for good reason.

When they first established these medieval abortion laws over a year ago, the self-righteous Paxton and Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared they would prosecute both any woman who had an abortion that didn’t meet their limited approval guidelines and anyone who aided in the procedure.  That means anyone who so much as gave a ride to a woman to an abortion clinic or funded the procedure could be fined imprisoned.  Yes!  I’m not making up this shit!  Someone please remind me what century we’re in right now.

Cox was so desperate she filed an appeal to the Texas State Supreme Court.  But, of course, that all-Republican body denied her request.  Once again, the woman’s life was in danger.  Her doctor said as much!  But these sanctimonious politicians have announced clearly they think they know better.  They fully believe their comprehension of the law transfers to the medical arena.

I honestly feel they’re suffering from perception delusion – a genuine psychological disorder in which an individual believes their perception of the world around them is real and authentic; that they – and only they – understand what’s going on and everyone else is unaware of the truth.  It’s akin to schizophrenia.

Let me put it in the more common vernacular: they’re fucked up.

It’s absolutely appalling these people think they know better about someone’s health and medical condition than that individual’s physician.  Many medical practitioners are already leaving the state of Texas because of the abortion issue.  Not just abortion providers!  Many obstetricians and gynecologists, as well as those in other disciplines, don’t want to take the chance their medical expertise will be questioned and vilified.

Quite frankly, if I had the money, I would have funded both Cox’s voyage out of Texas and her procedure.  I would have even funded her legal defense should the state come after her, as if she was a drug trafficker – which I’m sure they will!

In the 1960s, a group of women calling themselves the “The Jane Collective” established an underground network of abortion providers in the U.S.  Operating much like the “Underground Railroad” of the 19^th century, the “Janes” worked with known abortionists throughout the nation to help women in the midst of distressed pregnancies.  In the spring of 1969, I was 5 years old, and my parents introduced me to a young woman named Carla*.  I remember her as a petite, strawberry blonde who told me, at one point, that – if she ever had a little boy – she hoped he’d be like me.  She stayed with us for a couple of days before she inexplicable (to me) disappeared.  We lived in a two-bedroom apartment above a garage behind a house owned by my father’s older sister and her husband.  It was where I grew up, until we moved to suburban Dallas at the end of 1972.  I was about 12 or 13 when I remembered Carla and asked my mother about her.  Who was she and why was she there?  My mother – who never held back the truth – told me everything.  Carla was about 18 and she was pregnant – and she didn’t want her parents to know.  One of my mother’s female colleagues was part of the “Jane” group, and my very progressive mother – a woman who once slapped a Roman Catholic nun who had slapped her younger brother and told a priest she would NOT have a bunch of children per the Church’s directive – agreed to help.  She had to talk my father into it.  Carla stayed with us for a couple of days before she was spirited away.  We never saw her again and never knew what became of her.

Around the turn of the century, when I was in my 30s, I was having lunch with my parents one Sunday afternoon, when the subject of abortion arose.  I brought up Carla again.  This time my father was in the room and substantiated my mother’s recounting of the events that spring so long ago.  They both wondered what had happened to Carla, and so did I.  I can only hope she was able to get her life in order and go on to have the family she might have wanted.

No one has the right to dictate what someone does with their own body and health.  That’s why I’m so opposed to male circumcision, for example, which is a similar issue.  Everyone has the right to the dignity of determining their own fate in life.  Neither politics nor religion should ever interfere with that.

*Name changed.