Abortion Takes Us Through the Looking Glass

It is almost axiomatic that if you feel strongly about something, you should not pay attention to the reader comments about that something on a mainstream media newspaper’s website. Regular readers of the Houston Chronicle‘s online edition can back me up on this—see, for example, the comments to my post about Lara Logan, the CBS reporter who was assaulted while covering the revolution in Egypt.

Tonight, however, I got two pages into the comments on an article and found that I agreed with almost all of them. I kept scrolling through five pages of comments, and found only a handful with which I disagreed.

The article alerts us to the fact that the mandatory transvaginal ultrasound bill is now officially destined for the Governor’s desk, and as it was one of his legislative priorities for the session, it will be signed into law. The remarkable comments include:

• Who exactly has to pay for this medically unnecessary sonogram? And what happens for an indigent woman can’t pay? From a legal standpoint, this sounds like an abortion sin tax. Jane71
• Sonograms cost about $350 each (and insurance companies bill much more than that). How much more will this forced picture showing raise our health care costs? TxQue
• Waste of time and money. [Republican/Tea Party Senator Dan] Patrick said he would make property tax reductions his priority when he got to Austin. He lied. I’ll never vote for him again. Taxpayer1999
• I typically side Republican, but not on this issue. The government should not have the right to force sonograms or anything else on its citizens. I’m not pro-abortion but I sure as hell don’t have the right to tell a women what she can and cannot do. Surcoat
• Brought to you by the party that is for limited government. esquireXII

To summarize these comments:

• Republicans are championing legislation that will function as a de facto tax on a legal medical procedure.
• Republicans are passing legislation that will increase healthcare and insurance costs.
• Newly-elected Republicans who campaigned as champions of the Tea Party movement lied about their priorities, aren’t doing what they promised they would do, and are meddling in matters best left private.

There are two possibilities. One is that I’ve crossed into crazyville, bought the biggest house on the block, and begun crafting a lifetime supply of tinfoil hats.

The other is that I’m in the majority on this. I’d like to thank Celinda Lake for providing the data that backs me up on being in the majority and not being the newest citizen of crazyville.

Polling, which she reviewed at the Planned Parenthood Action Fund luncheon yesterday, shows:

A solid majority of Americans would want the next Supreme Court justice to vote to uphold Roe if that case came before the court again.

Source: ABC News/Washington Post, April 22 – April 25, 2010 and based on 1,001 adults nationwide.

Furthermore, two-thirds of Americans believe that the federal government should continue to provide funding to Planned Parenthood.

Source: CNN. April 9-10, 2011. based on 824 adults nationwide.

You couldn’t tell that the majority feels this way based on the all-out assault on women’s bodily integrity and right to privacy being carried out by alleged Republicans in DC or Austin.

Are you angry yet? Do you have that disorienting feeling that you’ve fallen through the looking-glass, where limited government, personal responsibility Republican Party stalwarts have been kidnapped by anti-woman, big-brother, government making your most personal decisions for you pod people?

Are you ready to vote the bums out next time around?