I Am Too Old for This Shit

Two days in a row, now, down at the Capitol raising hell and being an "Unruly Mob,"  On the first, we marched.  Of course, it's downhill from the Capitol to Cesar Chavez and over to Lavaca, and uphill all the way back.  We circled around the back of the Capitol, and when we came up San Jacinto, lo and behold--there was the parking garage where I had left Hans.  I sort of slunk away.

Tonight (last night, now), I was back there, as the House has the new anti-abortion bill in committee and was hearing citizen input until midnight.  I never did get into the hearing room.  As Unruly Mobs go, we were really pretty ruly...we outnumbered the anti-choice crowd about 20 to 1.  I think many of the god-botherers had to get home and have their warm milk and prayer...the Devil walks in darkness, ya know.

Anyway, after some sort of minor stalling, the bill passed out of committee, and will be heard next week in the House.  The Senate version will go through the same process, probably as early as Monday.  I will be back.

The thing is, we fought this war back in the 70s.  The reason we have Roe v Wade is not because somebody woke up one morning and said, "Wouldn't it be nice if we could have abortions?"  We have it because too many women were dying from botched back-alley butchering, and somebody said, "Ya know...if this were legal, it would be a hell of a lot safer."  Now, the Republicans are trying to say that it ain't safe enough, so we have to make sure the clinics all have 8 ft. doorways.  Because, you know...going in and taking a pill just isn't safe unless you can get a gurney down the hall, and the doctor has to have admitting privileges at a hospital no more that 30 minutes away.  In case...I don't know...in case the pill gets stuck in your throat?

Of course, the Fundies also say that life begins at conception.  Never mind that the medical establishment disagrees and says the earliest life can begin is when the fertilized egg is implanted in the wall of the uterus.  All the Fundies know that doctors suffer from "liberal bias."  Never mind that, in the bible, nothing lives until it breathes.  Never mind that our word "soul" translates from a Hebrew (or whatever; I'm no scholar) word meaning, "breath."  They know what they know, and there ain't no arguing with them.  They comprise about 20% of the electorate here in Texas, and they raise a pretty big stink,  They bought and paid for most of the Republican members of the House and Senate, which is where we got all this crap in the first place.

Trying to eliminate abortion is bad, but they are also trying to stem the use of hormonal birth control, under the assumption (a lie) that it doesn't prevent, it aborts.

So they keep ramming these lies down our throats, and women are going to die.

At this rate, I may be one of them.  There are a lot of stairs in the Capitol, and we climbed quite a few of them.

I repeat; I am too old for this shit.  We were walking around the outdoor rotunda, shaking hands with the other protesters and saying, "We're coming back," and one of the people whose hand I shook was a little girl of maybe 12, and I cried.  We can't let these girls down.  We can't let these stupid, insincere, lying, pandering politicos do this to us.

Whose choice?  Our choice!