More Red State Fun

My Mom doesn't like it when I swear on my blog, but this shit is fucked up.

Anti-trans measures in Texas are going from bad to worse. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is no ally to LGBTQ+ people, but his decision to essentially make a nonbinding opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton the word of law is decidedly cruel. As Daily Kos covered at the time, the Republican Texas attorney general wrote an opinion—which is essentially an analysis based on his interpretation of existing law—that categorizes gender-affirming health care for trans youth as child abuse. This goes against standard science and medicine from a number of major medical groups, mind you.

Abbott then directed state agencies to abide by this opinion and investigate families who seek gender-affirming care for trans youth, like hormone therapy and puberty blockers. One hospital in Texas has already paused its treatments out of concern for physicians facing legal ramifications. And one family in Texas says they’ve already been investigated by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS).

This is unambiguously evil but standard Republican action. Remember, Florida just passed its own bill to punish LGBTQ+ people and their families yesterday.

What are other pro-fascist states doing?

The Texas law banning abortion after six weeks has forced a lot of women to leave the state to obtain medical care. Missouri Republicans have a plan to stop that—not by removing the need to leave the state, but by preventing them from doing so.

Missouri passed a set of harsh restrictions in 2019. More than 10,000 Missourians have been helped at a single Planned Parenthood clinic located on the Illinois side of the state border since the clinic opened in October of that year. The single remaining clinic providing abortions in Missouri, by contrast, was doing just 10 to 20 each month. But some Republicans in the state don’t think that’s enough and have been looking for ways to crack down still further. Texas and the Supreme Court have given them an idea. 

A provision being attached as an amendment to several other anti-abortion bills would make it illegal to leave the state for a legal abortion in another state, usually neighboring Illinois.

 So, wearing a mask and getting a vaccination to protect yourself and others from a deadly disease is tyranny beyond the imagination, worthy of overthrowing the government, but prohibiting children and women from accessing legal, potentially life-saving, medical care is fine?

Don't these people have anything better to do? I kid! Of course they don't. They also don't seem to realize that the point of government is to help make people's lives better, not oppress the shit out of them.

Fucking assholes. (Sorry Mom)