State House Ruled By White GOP Men Backs
Bill that Dems Decry as Women Rights Attack

Capitol Inside
May 5, 2021

Ignoring warnings at the national level on the relegation of women to handmaiden status in the GOP, the Texas House voted on Tuesday for an abortion restrictions bill that Democrats portrayed as the latest attack by white male Republicans on women rights.

The House gave tentative approval to the GOP's so-called heartbeat bill in an 81-53 vote that featured all of the Republicans who were on the chamber floor and one Democrat on the winning side. The measure would prohibit physicians from performing abortions if they're able to detect the heart beating inside the womb.

The House version of Senate Bill 8 had the bill to increase state regulations on medical doctors with the threat of civil liability won the support of 72 white Republican men, the GOP's only Black lawmaker in State Rep. James White of Hillister and Democratic State Rep. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City.

All seven of the women Republicans in the lower chamber backed the anti-abortion measure as well including State Rep. Angie Chen Button of Garland as the only other GOP lawmaker in Texas who isn't white as an Asian-American of Chinese descent.

State Rep. Shelby Slawson - a rookie Republican from Stephenville - appeared to be trying her best to stay on script by repeating the same line about protecting the innocent and unborn amid a hailstorm of criticism from women Democrats who decried the plan as a dangerous example of big government at its worst.

Slawson and her five fellow white female Republicans all appeared to be miffed when fellow freshman State Rep. Jeff Cason of Bedford apparently sought to give the bill a boost with a relatively incoherent line of questioning on who and how a heartbeat is detected in the womb.

Slawson dodged a question from Democratic State Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos of Dallas on why the bill had targeted doctors for potential punishment for violations of the proposal without making the women who actually make the final call exempt from culpability at the courthouse.

GOP Speaker Dade Phelan's decision to allow Slawson to carry SB 8 in the House had been a highly curious move in light of the fact that representatives in their first sessions had rarely if ever been tapped as sponsors on major legislation. Slawson had made headlines a week ago with her apparently unwitting perpetuation of a female House aide's lies about a date rape drug and a lobbyist that were exposed in the next several days as a fraud.

Slawson had taken the dramatic step of banning all lobbyists from her Capitol office based on the staffer's claim that she'd been drugged by a lobbyist while drinking with a group of people at the Austin Club more than a month ago. Slawson - like almost all of her colleagues on both sides of the aisle - has yet to admit publicly that she'd been hoodwinked by the date rape drug sham that's left the House stewing in shame and embarrasment that none of its members appear prepared to acknowledge.

Slawson sought to pitch SB 8 with a personal story about one of her children dying at birth with an abnormality that had been discovered while she was pregnant. But the Democratic women commanded the spotlight during the debate on the abortion measure.

Democratic State Rep. Nicole Collier of Fort Worth accused the Republicans of constantly "chipping away" at the rights of women in the Lone Star State with the current attempt to restrict abortions. Collier - the Criminal Jurisprudence chair on the Phelan leadership team - depicted SB 8 as a massive waste of valuable time that could have been spent on real state needs like infrastructure, education and health care instead of pandering to the conservative base.

State Rep. Gina Hinojosa of Austin argued that the Republicans were extending the state's jurisdiction into the bodies of women. The daughter of Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa, the Capital City lawmaker told the House how she'd struggled before deciding to forego an abortion 18 years ago with the birth of a child who'd been diagnosed with a fatal abnormality. She said the baby did not survive.

Hinojosa said that family members who were staunch Catholics and anti-abortion assured her that the termination of the pregnancy would be perfectly justified under the circumstances.

"It was the hardest decision of my life," Hinojosa said. "Why would we take that opportunity - that choice - away from anyone in this state? Isn't that what life's about - the choices that we make?"

The abortion regulation measure moved one step closer to passage in the House several hours after former congressional Republican Barbara Comstock of Virginia warned female Republicans that the GOP leaders were turning them into a "handmaiden" with the move to oust U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney from the House leadership team as payback for voting to convict Donald Trump for his role in the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

The number of Republican women in the Texas House has plunged since Trump's election as president in 2016. The state House had 20 female Republicans when the GOP seized the majority in 2003. That number had fallen to 13 by 2015 before falling to six two years later when Trump was elected.

Comstock appeared to be referring to the award winning television series on Hulu called The Handmaid's Tale. The TV show is set in the future when the few women who are capable of giving birth are enslaved and impregnated by men at homes where they've been assigned to produce babies for infertile wives to raise.

State Rep. Shelby Slawson defends abortion restrictions bill with all but one of GOP House females by her side.
 
 
 
State Rep. Donna Howard and fellow Dems oppose SB 8 as attack on individual liberty of women.

 

 

 

 

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