Texas Senator Hegar—I hope you are RIGHT and there is a God and a Heaven and a Hell. 

I hope that you are right because that means you will burn in hell.

I can think of no more fitting price to pay for your mean, hypocritical behavior in the State Capitol this past few weeks. That Christian god whose ass you lick so diligently has a huge reputation for charity, and you displayed NONE regarding the omnibus abortion legislation. When you find yourself assigned to hell, along with Governor Perry and the rest of your conservative cohorts, I think you will discover that this battlefield you paraded around so self-righteously here on earth set you all up for eternal damnation.

When this bill was signed by Governor Perry you said, “There has been no other piece of legislation that I have ever worked on — nor any that I will ever work on — that has weighed so heavy on my mind, on my heart and literally on my soul.”  You dishonest, ignorant, son of a bitch—how brazen of you to pretend to being a leader, an informed decision maker representing ALL of your constituents, when all you are is a poor excuse for what an elected official should be. I don’t give a damn what your soul says you pious loser. Abortion is legal in the United States and yet you are proud of your service as Perry’s lackey to make this end run to limit access to abortions—an action that will have a far greater negative impact. Have you looked at the map of the loss of clinics in Texas? You may see unborn lives saved, but I see a brutal slash of savage meanness that will be crippling for Texas women and the families that love them from the Rio Grande Valley, up the 1,254 miles of the Texas/Mexico border, into the great plains, and across the panhandle. Your chickenshit legislation will close down clinics that serve many of the state’s poor, rural, and underserved populations. You think that’s going to make your GOD happy? I don’t.

Today, July 18^th, when you and your crew were signing and celebrating your bill, I was flat on the floor of a clinic in the Rio Grande valley. I was weighing my options, as an unexpected and serious illness while traveling with my children left me with a few bad choices. Turns out medical options are scarce down here, and when you are sick—and I'm sure it gets worse when you are sick and scared—you find yourself making decisions based on a lot of things that should not rank above a healthy outcome. But here I am, a 50-year old professional woman with cash in my purse and a friend that made the trip to the valley to sit beside me in my pain—and I was trying to decide if the cost of an ambulance to a decent hospital an hour away was worth it. I can’t get up off the floor and I’m thinking about cost—and I have insurance. I’m also realizing I’m too sick to travel and too sick to stay in such a medical wasteland—and I don’t know what to do. Let me tell you something, with all the things I have going for me I felt screwed. An 8-hour drive when I'm sick? A higher cost for services that were inexpensive or free in the past?  But YOU, and that half-assed excuse for a Governor, and the rest of your conservative league of falsely pious shits have just condemned tens of thousands of women (with far fewer resources than I have available) to feeling screwed for years to come. Are you not afraid, really, truly afraid, that this action will haunt you all?

I cannot find the words for my rage.

If men got pregnant, this sort of legislation would never, ever, be considered.

If ANY of you elected pricks and thin-lipped bitches think abortion hasn’t been the option of choice for women you love (your MOTHERS, your DAUGHTERS, your SISTERS, and your WIVES)…think again. I’ve been to those clinics and there were plenty of affluent, white, Christian, gals in there that were YOUR family members. I don’t blame them for not telling you, you are certifiable ASSHOLES and no one would trust you with such a personal and painful choice. I do blame YOU for thinking you know what’s best and trying to deny women in Texas access to choice.

You stand on the floor of the Texas Legislature and whimper about LIFE, in a state that executes more humans than most nations. Governor Perry sent his 261st inmate to deathjust this month. Don’t the lies about your belief in the sanctity of life stick in your throats?

And WOMEN”S HEALTH as a concern? Did some of you arrogant, wretched people reference concerns for women’s health to justify your “playing god” legislation? NO ONE IN AMERICA thinks this legislation has a single thing to do with health. It’s a war on abortion access and you have the unmitigated nerve to suggest that you care about health when Texas ranks DEAD LAST in America in health care services on the 2012 scorecard issued by the federal Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. Texas has the HIGHEST rating in uninsured citizens, and yet in 2011 our state’s morally bankrupt Republican majority underfunded Medicaid by billions

                                                                                                                                        

I went to the Texas Capitol with my 10 year old daughter when I read that the State Senate was forcing a showdown on June 25th. I took both kids to hearings earlier in the week, but only my 10-year old daughter and I were there the night a big crowd became an “unruly mob” and was written into the history books.

The lines wove crazily through the Capitol, up stairways, down stairways, around rotundas, through north and south wings…it was a cheerful group. Mostly women, almost all in orange, ranging in age from 4 to 94.

We chatted, looked for news on iphones and ipads, and speculated on if Senator Wendy Davis had opted for a diaper or a catheter. (She has two kids—and those of us that have given birth were disinclined to think any woman that has given birth twice could hold her piss for 13 hours.) Food was passed out by volunteers, and water bottles were distributed frequently.

It felt more like camping out for tickets for the Dixie Chicks than a political event.

But there was a charge in the air—and as things heated up on the Senate floor around 10:30 pm, the crowd became more alert and tension rippled through as bits and pieces of news reached us.

When the filibuster was stopped, on dubious grounds, the crowd surged into a different mode.

Lines became tight crowds, buzzes became roars.

It crossed my mind as the DPS troopers tried to work through the crowd to the doors of the Senate Gallery, that they were being pretty polite—but who, really, would want to escalate things with a bunch of women and children?

When the screaming and shouting began in earnest, we knew what we were doing.

We were trying to drown out the business of the Texas Senate.

It was deliberate, heartfelt, and justified.

And we won a victory of sorts.

The majority Republicans were caught with their pants down—unable to finish what they started and caught falsifying the records to cover their tracks.

They backed up, backed down, and then Governor Perry called them all back for another round.

Make no mistake—this is a war on abortion by 117 elected officials (plus Perry and Dewhurst, the worst of the lot) from a state with more than 26 million residents.

This is war.

And I aim to fight.

I have been down to the Capitol to submit testimony, march, shout, and stand many times since the night of June 26th. The crowds get bigger and bigger. There are more men, more children, and more indignant women. There are folks in blue on the “other side” but they are terribly underwhelming as a whole.

This battle was lost, but, I think, not the war.

I am an unlikely soldier in this war, but I will NOT allow everything I have learned in the past 50 years to go unsaid.

I do not think a pregnancy is the same thing as a baby.

I have miscarried after the first trimester and that bloody mess was not a baby.

I would NEVER insist a woman get an abortion, and I would NEVER insist a woman complete a pregnancy.

That fewer than 100 mealy-mouthed men and a dozen tightly wound, conservative bitches would vote to decide to limit my options to end a pregnancy is stunning.

The audacity.

The hypocrisy.

The rule-breaking, the cheating, the FRAUD from Republicans crowing about their moral high ground.

We should all be terrified that they do so publicly, proudly, and oblivious to what this means.

It means Rick Perry and his band of right-wing, like minded legislators think they can do whatever they want.

Pro-death penalty legislators promising to protect life.

Anti-gun control legislators worried about a safer community.

It would be funny if it were not so terrifying and sad.

I could write for years.

I will fight forever.

So when I say “GO TO HELL” to these insufferable shits, I don’t mean “get lost” or “I hate you.” I mean I really, really, really hope there is a hell and they congregate there for eternity to burn in shame for being cruel, for being arrogant, and for being WRONG in taking this action.