“The infant mortality rate went up in the state by nearly 13% the year after the Heartbeat Act went into effect.”
Of course it did.
The bill was never about “SAVING BAYBEES!”, it was about controlling women’s autonomy.
Republicans in Texas didn’t even want to feed children in this state. Their excuse? “Fear of Big Government” — literally ONE THIRD of Texas’ budget of Federal dollars!
JFC!
@feloneouscat I've come to suspect we wouldn't have so many of these problems if everyone was less emotional - because while the intent of the law's architects and active proponents may be to control women... the average person who passively supports it is, in all likelihood, just a gullible schmuck who hasn't seen the real statistics and swallows the emotionally manipulative (hysterical) neocon propaganda bullshit hook, line, & sinker.
Harder to manipulate that way if they're less emotional.
Sadly, I think many people have NO PROBLEM with women being controlled. There are a lot of angry men who feel like they have been denied opportunities because women (never mind they didn’t go to college and women did).
I think there is a lot of privilege because of penis (see Trump) out there. Twitter is full of it (see the owner).
Perhaps there are some that BELIEVE they are saving baybees, but I suspect they are few and far between.
Just my two cents.
@feloneouscat There are also a lot, and I mean A LOT-a lot, of abortion-ambivalent and even pro-choice political conservatives who disagree with the harsh anti-abortion policies, but won't change their vote because of it due to being focused on other issues.
Then there are a few folks who say things like "I have no problem with allowing abortion, but if we're going to do that we should set up free abortion clinics in developing countries too", which seems to make both sides very uncomfortable.
@feloneouscat Also, college is not the be-all-end-all of "ways to set yourself up for success" anymore.
Skilled trades seem to be increasingly fitting that role, because many of them are in extremely short (and dwindling) supply amid growing demand... and because you don't accumulate so much debt doing a skilled trade.
I think I recall reading a statistic the other day that (in a nutshell) said there are now more underemployed people with degrees than there are actually using their degrees.
@feloneouscat Well, I'll open with the caveat that things may well be different in Texas than where I'm from...
But where I'm from, the vast majority of anti-abortion conservatives I've talked to (quite a few) indicated they took that stance either because of religious convictions or because they don't really grasp that an embryo has no real awareness/consciousness to speak of.
There are definitely a few crazies for whom it really is about control, but at least here they're a small minority.