To:
Rush Limbaugh
From:
Eddie Griffin
Why
do you call my state senator Wendy Davis “Abortion Barbie”? Is it the color of
her hair, or because she filibustered an amendment to the Texas Abortion Law?
Or, is it both?
I
consider your usage of term “Abortion Barbie” a slur, not against Wendy Davis
but the Barbie doll, and against the little girls that grew up adoring her. It
is reminiscent of the days of Goldie Hawn on Laugh In when she was typecast as the “dumb blond”. Beauty without a brain was a typical locker
room joke among boys about blonds back in the day. Not only was this blond stereotype
perceived being not very smart, but she was also portrayed on the movie screen
as the poor helpless maiden who always fainted at the first hint of danger, or the
girl tied to the railroad track screaming for help from some chauvinist hero. Do
you remember?
So
what are you saying? Are you insinuating that Wendy Davis is a dumb blond,
fearful and weak and a helpless maiden in a man’s world, just because she does
not wave around her Texas six-shooter as a macho posture in the gun rights
debate?
Really,
I beg your pardon, sir. Wendy Davis did not get into her position as a leader
of our community for any of the above reasons. She is proven. She has defied
the odds and been victorious in battle.
As
a constituent of Texas Senate District 10 and a friend of Wendy Davis, let me
not lose sight of the fact that a slur against her is a slight against all her
constituents, who voted for her, and love and adore her for her courage.
SECONDLY:
As for the Abortion Issue, it seems to
me that FOX News and other you other outside media come into our state in the 9th
inning and want to coach the rest of the ball game. It only goes to show your
ignorance of the fight in Texas over abortion, which has been going on for a
long time before you Johnny-come-lately got here. Start with the fact that Texas
already has an abortion law. Are you surprise? It is authorized under the state’s
Health and Safety Code, which was enacted in 2003, and amended in 2011 and 2013.
Sec.
171.003 reads: An abortion may be
performed only by a physician licensed to practice medicine in this state.
Like
it or not, the first five words say it all: An abortion may be performed. The law dictates the terms and
conditions under which a doctor can administer an abortion in Texas. For
example, in a situation where the life and health of a pregnant mother hangs in
the balance and a decision has to made whether to save the unborn child or the
mother, who should make the call as to which one lives and which one dies? I do
not believe politicians are equipped to make that decision. It is a decision to
be made only by a woman, her husband, and her doctor. Spiritual counseling helps.
If
there is a starting point in this abortion debate, it would begin with the Texas
78th Legislature and a bill signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry. All
of this Pro-Life versus Pro-Abortion juxtaposing is nothing but a false
dichotomy created by the media for political entertainment. The real problem
arises, not between pro and con factions, but the wording of the law as it is
written.
For example:
In the 2013 amendment SB 5, Sec. 171.061(9), the law defines an “Unborn child”
to mean “an offspring of human beings from
conception until birth.” Under the 2003 law, Sec. 171.061(4) defines the “Gestational
age” to mean “the amount of time that has elapsed since the first day of a woman’s last menstrual
period.” Sec. 171.016(a) speaks of “gestational increments” measured “from the time when a woman can be known to
be pregnant to full term.” Moreover, Sec. 171.041, which is cited as
“Preborn Pain Act”, in subsection (1), Post-fertilization age means “the age of the unborn child as calculated
from the fusion of a human spermatozoon with a human ovum.” In other words,
for the purpose of the law, pregnancy begins when the sperm fertilizes the
ovary egg.
Most
women do not know that they are pregnant after missing one menstrual cycle. Some
delay until after the second missed cycle. But by then she is legally pregnant,
which means that provisions and restrictions of the law kick in. The so-called morning-after
pill RU-486 then falls under the strict regulations of state law, though it is
approved for distribution by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Those
who believe that the life of an unborn child begins at the fertilization of an
egg are counting their chickens before they hatch. And, for those who believe
in the bible, they should know that life begins before biological conception. As
God told Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you.” (Jeremiah
1:5). In other words, God knows each of us before we are born. However, we do
not become a “living soul” until God breaths into us the breath of life
(Genesis 2:7). If life is meant to be, God will make it happen. Otherwise, man
is in error if he thinks that he can will life into existence.
There
was just such case in Wendy Davis’ district which proved the fallacy of man’s
thinking that God’s will is for every conception to come to life. The case centered
on Erick Muñoz and his late wife Marlise, who died during the earliest stage of
her pregnancy. The man fought for the right to lay his wife to rest and have some
closure for his grief. But the Texas abortion law prevented it. Therefore, the
woman’s corpse was kept on life support for two agonizing months, while political
opportunists championed a misguided cause for a right-to-life for an embryo that
was still at the developmental stage of a tadpole. Why? Because the law defined
an unborn child at the point of conception, doctors were forbidden from
terminating the pregnancy.
As
Marlise Muñoz’s corpse decayed, the more deformed the fetus. Eventually, God
prevailed. But it would seem that under Sec. 171.002(3) and Sec. 171.0124(c) of
the law that the doctors could have terminated the pregnancy on the basis of
“medical emergency” provisions. But the punitive sanctions in the law would put
the doctors at risk of being charged with a misdemeanor under Sec. 171.018 and
fined $10,000 and possibly losing their license to practice medicine, insofar
as the Texas Medical Board was given the police power to enforce this law (Sec.
171.062).
Nevertheless,
we have found that once a law is on the books, it is rarely abolished. Rather,
it is eroded over time by new amendments. Likewise, the Abortion of Law of
Texas has been changed quite a bit since its 2003 origin.
Another
example: The law alludes to the victims of rape and incest, but makes no
exceptions to its strictures except under Sec. 171.046 (a) where the life and
health of the mother is jeopardized, and Sec. 171.046 (c) where an abortion can
be performed “on an unborn child who has a severe
fetal abnormality”.
The
law does not forbid any woman from getting an abortion, as long as it complies
with the aforementioned constrictions upon doctors. But the only specific
provision for victims of rape or incest is Sec. 171.012(2) (C), which says:
… (2) the physician who
performs the abortion or the physician’s agent informs the pregnant woman that:
(C) public and private agencies provide pregnancy prevention counseling and
medical referrals for obtaining pregnancy prevention medications or devices,
including emergency contraception for
victims of rape and incest.
What
need does a victim of rape and incest have for “emergency contraception”? To
insure that she does not get pregnant the next time she is violated?
The
big deal with the outside media has been focused on Wendy Davis’ filibuster
against the 20-weeks Post-Fertilization prohibition in Subchapter C. If people
had ears to hear, instead of their preconceived ideas, they would have heard Wendy
herself say that the 20-week restriction was the least of the problems with the
law. In fact, in an interview with the Fort
Worth Star-Telegram, “She has said she would have
backed a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy if parts of the law had
been different.”
This
list above is only a few of the flaws. Again: The severability clause in Sec.
171.048 provides that if any part of the law is found to be unconstitutional by
the federal court, all other portions of the law remains in effect. And if the
court “declines to impose the saving construction described by this subsection,
the Supreme Court of Texas shall provide
an authoritative construction of the objectionable statutory provisions that
avoids the constitutional problems while enforcing the statute's
restrictions to the maximum possible extent.” In other words, if any part of
the law is deemed unconstitutional by some lawsuit, the state of Texas will fix
the discrepancy itself, no thanks to any outside interference from the courts
and the federal government. Nothing changes in the intent of the law.
The
2003 law originally provided for the publication and distribution of
information “designed to inform the
pregnant woman of public and private agencies and services that “are available
to assist a woman through pregnancy, childbirth, and the child’s dependency”,
according to Sec. 171.015(1) (A). This indexed list would have included
agencies like Planned Parenthood which provided a full range of healthcare services
for poor women, including cancer screening, mammograms, and counseling, besides
making medical referrals for abortions. But the 2010 amendment narrowed the
list to only adoption agencies and excluded all agencies that made referrals
for abortion, no matter how medically necessary- See Sec. 171.015(1) (B-C). Moreover, in anticipation of future mass
closings of Planned Parenthood facilities, the law provided certain waivers for
expectant mothers who had to travel more than 100 miles to receive the same
medical services that they previously had been receiving at their neighborhood
clinics.
No,
Texas does not prohibit abortions as many outsiders think. Instead, it
concentrates abortion-related services into the hands of fewer medical
practices, in certain geographical areas of the state, and only for those who
can afford to travel back and forth over a great distances to receive it.
