Republicans continue to say they don’t have to change their core principles, they only have to change the language they use to get their message out. One perception they want to alter is the idea that they are running a “war on women”. Looking at the news over the past few years, I’d say the Republican Party has a long way to go on this subject.
- Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky): “Talk about a manufactured issue. There is no issue.”
- RNC Chairman Reince Priebus: “It’s a fiction.”
*****
I am using a different format for this commentary because the article by Erick Eckholm quoted below explains the frightening situation in Texas better than anything I could write. If you have been thinking of the rash of new Republican restrictive abortion laws in only the abstract, you need to read this article. (Any underlines are mine.)
The Texas Front
A PILL AVAILABLE IN MEXICO IS AN OPTION FOR ABORTION, by Erik Eckholm --
"McAllen, Tex. -- At the Whole Woman's Health center here, a young woman predicted what others would do if the state's stringent new abortion bill approved late Friday forces clinics like this one to close: cross the border to Mexico to seek an 'abortion pill.'
The woman...was referring to a drug that can induce miscarriages and is openly available in Mexico and covertly at some flea markets in Texas.
In Nuevo Progreso, only yards past the Mexican border, pharmacists respond to requests for a pill to 'bring back a woman's period' by offering the drug, misoprostol, at discount prices: generic at $35 for a box of 28 pills, or the branded Cytotec for $175.
When asked how women should use the pills, some of the pharmacists said they did not know and others recommended wildly different regimes that doctors say could be unsafe...
...In the United States, legal medication abortions involve the use, in the first nine weeks of pregnancy, of misoprostol together with a steroid that breaks down the uterine lining. The success rate is more than 95 percent. In addition to requiring many clinics to close, the new Texas law would curb such medication abortions by requiring that the drugs be administered at surgery centers and at what doctors call an outdated dosage."
...Lucy Felix, a community educator, said that many of the women she works with do not have legal residency and cannot...cross the southern border to buy the pill for fear that they may not be able to return to their families in Texas.
'The only option left for many women will be to go get those pills at a flea market,' Ms. Felix said. 'Some of them will end up in the E.R.'"
'They will close us down,' said Dr. Lester Minto...
...In a tour of the Whole Woman's Health clinic, (we were shown) some of the design and equipment requirements in the new law that would force the clinic to shut down. The clinic...performs about 1,900 abortions a year using doctors that fly in from other states...
The clinic, like most in Texas, performs abortions only through the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, using medications or a suction method...and involves no incisions...
...The (clinic) does not have the wide hallways required of a surgery center to facilitate the movement of stretchers in an emergency. In nine years and thousands of abortions...the clinic has sent only two patients to the hospital, both for readily-treated bleeding.
With plush recliners, a Georgia O'Keeffe flower print on the wall and herbal tea, the center's recovery room resembles a small first-class lounge.
Ambulatory surgery centers, in contrast, must have large, hospital-style recovery rooms, with medical equipment on the walls. Patients must rest on gurneys, separated by ceiling mounted curtains. The herbal tea would not be allowed.
The woman...was referring to a drug that can induce miscarriages and is openly available in Mexico and covertly at some flea markets in Texas.
In Nuevo Progreso, only yards past the Mexican border, pharmacists respond to requests for a pill to 'bring back a woman's period' by offering the drug, misoprostol, at discount prices: generic at $35 for a box of 28 pills, or the branded Cytotec for $175.
When asked how women should use the pills, some of the pharmacists said they did not know and others recommended wildly different regimes that doctors say could be unsafe...
...In the United States, legal medication abortions involve the use, in the first nine weeks of pregnancy, of misoprostol together with a steroid that breaks down the uterine lining. The success rate is more than 95 percent. In addition to requiring many clinics to close, the new Texas law would curb such medication abortions by requiring that the drugs be administered at surgery centers and at what doctors call an outdated dosage."
Doctors in Texas and elsewhere have said that provisions of these new laws are medically unnecessary. But now, Texas lawmakers have gone a step further by deciding that they know how to prescribe medication! Aside from the obvious fact that only a licensed physician can write a prescription in this country, what part of "outdated dosage" fits with these politicians' claim that their new law "increases the quality of care"?!"Many women receive incorrect advice on dosage and, especially later in pregnancy, the drug can cause serious bleeding or a partial abortion...
...Lucy Felix, a community educator, said that many of the women she works with do not have legal residency and cannot...cross the southern border to buy the pill for fear that they may not be able to return to their families in Texas.
'The only option left for many women will be to go get those pills at a flea market,' Ms. Felix said. 'Some of them will end up in the E.R.'"
Or there will be a lot babies born with automatic American citizenship to illegal women--another problem that Republicans would like to solve with an ax."The two abortion clinics in the Rio Grande Valley say that the cost of meeting ambulatory surgical center standards would be prohibitive. They also doubt that they could find nearby hospitals that would grant admitting privileges to the abortion doctors, another element of the new law.
'They will close us down,' said Dr. Lester Minto...
...In a tour of the Whole Woman's Health clinic, (we were shown) some of the design and equipment requirements in the new law that would force the clinic to shut down. The clinic...performs about 1,900 abortions a year using doctors that fly in from other states...
The clinic, like most in Texas, performs abortions only through the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, using medications or a suction method...and involves no incisions...
...The (clinic) does not have the wide hallways required of a surgery center to facilitate the movement of stretchers in an emergency. In nine years and thousands of abortions...the clinic has sent only two patients to the hospital, both for readily-treated bleeding.
With plush recliners, a Georgia O'Keeffe flower print on the wall and herbal tea, the center's recovery room resembles a small first-class lounge.
Ambulatory surgery centers, in contrast, must have large, hospital-style recovery rooms, with medical equipment on the walls. Patients must rest on gurneys, separated by ceiling mounted curtains. The herbal tea would not be allowed.
In other words, if the Texas law withstands its legal challenges, a woman who would have been able to go to a clinic and have an abortion in caring surroundings where she would be made as comfortable as possible given the emotionally traumatic aspects of the procedure, will be forced to choose between a cold, hospital atmosphere of gurneys and white curtains, (thank God and the Republicans that they'll be ceiling mounted!), or purchasing a drug from a flea market that could end up killing her.
And thus we have the Republican definition of improved "quality of care."
The Republican War on Women is "fiction"?
WHAT YOU DO SPEAKS SO LOUDLY
THAT I CANNOT HEAR WHAT YOU SAY.
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