Holy Crap! Look what Greg Abbott is up to now!

[WestHoustonDem]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4043611.html

July 13, 2006, 1:08AM
State rule sought on doctors, new abortion laws
An official asks if physicians can be criminally charged for performing banned procedures

By JANET ELLIOTT
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN - Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has been asked to rule whether laws passed in 2003 and 2005 could subject doctors to capital murder charges for performing late-term abortions or abortions on minors without their parents' consent.

State Affairs Chairman David Swinford, R-Amarillo, asked for the opinion, citing an analysis by a state prosecutors group that said murder prosecutions of doctors could be an "unintended consequence" of the law changes.
Click to learn more...

Swinford said he disagrees with the interpretation by the Texas District and County Attorneys Association because there is no evidence that the Legislature intended such a result from changes it made to the law governing doctors' conduct last year.

He said the changes were intended to provide appropriate criminal penalties for a physician's failure to comply with restrictions on third-trimester abortions or to obtain the consent of a minor's parent, but "certainly not to subject a physician to prosecution for capital murder."

Connecting the dots
Shannon Edmonds, director of governmental relations for the prosecutors' group, believes a doctor could be charged with capital murder for performing a restricted abortion. He said, however, that he has heard of no such prosecutions.

Edmonds discovered the problem when he was looking at new criminal offenses enacted during the 2005 regular session.

"We started connecting the dots and that's where we ended up," said Edmonds.

When Republicans took control of the Texas House in 2003, they began enacting new restrictions on abortion. One of the first laws was the 2003 Prenatal Protection Act, which allows prosecutors to seek criminal charges when a fetus is killed by a violent attack. Capital murder charges were already possible for killing a child younger than 6.

Abortion rights advocates warned in 2003 that the act could be used to criminalize abortion, and the Legislature provided a defense for doctors performing a "lawful medical procedure."

Last year, lawmakers on the House floor attached two abortion-related amendments to a bill restructuring the Texas Medical Board, which licenses and disciplines doctors.

One prohibited physicians from performing an abortion on a minor without her parents' consent or a court order. The other banned third-trimester abortions except to save the life of the mother.

Amendments passed
The Senate accepted the amendments, and the bill became law Sept. 1.

Edmonds reasoned that because those two acts are no longer "lawful medical procedures," the defense in the Prenatal Protection Act no longer applies.

Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, lobbied for the amendments. He believes that the only crime a doctor could be charged with is violating the Occupations Code, a third-degree felony which carries a punishment range of two to 10 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.

The Texas Medical Association agrees with that analysis.

"The Legislature specifically established penalties when it passed the new law. Any physician who violates that law obviously should not be subject to capital punishment," said Brent Annear, a spokesman for the association.

Peggy Romberg, director of the Women's Health and Family Planning Association of Texas, said the issue needs to be resolved. "This could have a chilling effect on providers and could result in women not having the access they need at a crisis time in their life," she said.

[e-mail]

[fudge stripe cookays]

1. I saw this this morning...

and thought I was going to throw up.

Another example of these hypocritical assholes and their "Let's kill people to show that killing people is wrong" mentality.

We have to get this out there so people see just how nuts they are.

K & R

[sonias]

2. Love your banner FSC

That's it in a nutshell. These people are hypocrites.

While I don't trust Abbott one bit to do the right thing, the Texas Legislature is really responsible for all these bad laws and restrictions and of course the Texas voters that put them there.

Think of how the whole "tort deform" crap was barely sold to the public, Prop. 12. They scared people into thinking that all the doctors in Texas were going to stop practicing medicine if we didn't get this amendment passed. This is the same tactic. Doctors have to stop performing abortions or the state will charge them with murder and kill them. So instead of revising bad law, they continue to put more pressure on doctors to stop offering a legal procedure.

Sonia

[TexasThoughtCriminal]

5. Ask anyone who voted for Prop. 12

Has your medical insurance gone down? And how exactly are those republicans in Austin looking out for you?:sarcasm:

[Czolgosz]

3. K & R (p.s., check out the Greg Abbott = Big Hypocrite blog)

<http://greg-abbott-is-a-hypocrite.blogspot.com>

[sonias]

4. Excellent link!

Thanks for the tip Czolgosz!

Yes Abbott is the biggest hypocrite of them all. He got his injury settlement, but he doesn't want you to get yours. Another example of a republican thinking. Laws and limitations on injuries should never apply to them. bush did the same thing with that lawsuit on the fender bender Jenna was involved in. One side of his hypocritical mouth is spewing frivolous lawsuit limits, while the other side is suing the car rental company.

George W. Bush, who as Texas governor advocated and signed legislation limiting civil lawsuits, filed a case of his own against a rental car agency over a minor accident involving one of his daughters.

Bush, the Republican presidential nominee, sued Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Austin, Texas, for the Sept. 8, 1998, accident, according to an article in Saturday's New York Daily News. The April 1999 civil lawsuit was filed in Austin, the newspaper said.

Lawyers familiar with Texas insurance law told the Daily News the type of lawsuit Bush filed probably was unnecessary because his insurance policy probably would have handled the costs. "It's more typical to just slip it to your insurance company," including the deductible payment, said Dallas lawyer Thomas Woodman.

lying hypocrites - the whole lot of republicans.

Sonia

[PDittie]

8. *LOL* Excellent work, Cg.

Expect rampant linkage.

[niccolos_smile]

6. Before we get carried away...

I think it's interesting to note that Chairman Swinford and the Texas Alliance for Life are opposed to the interpretation of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association.

I also doubt Abbott will concur with the opinion of the TDCAA, although that might not stop DA's from seeking such a charge against doctors in these cases (according to the Dallas Morning News).

In the Dallas Morning News, '"From what everyone's said, no one had the intention that the law read like this. But it's a pretty clear interpretation," he said.'

According to the legislators involved, this was not their intent, so I don't know how they could see this as a clear interpretation of the law, when they did not take intent into account.

[PDittie]

7. This is just the next step in the plan

to illegalize a woman's right to choose.

The Texas law passed in 2003 said that removing an embryo/fetus at any stage is capital murder unless one is performing a legal medical procedure. Then the Lege passes laws making third-trimester procedures illegal. It is now assumed -- which is why they have asked the OAG for the legal opinion -- that those would no longer fall under the exemption of the 2003 law, hence ... performing the procedure would be considered capital murder.

This isn't going to stop at the Texas border, either.

This will be the Repuke's battle cry for the November election: save the babies by arresting the doctors. It is intended to motivate their base to the polls, just as gay marriage did last November.

We must get these people out of office.

[niccolos_smile]

9. Could you point me to the 2003 law?

I honestly haven't heard about it. I don't follow the abortion issue closely, so the only reason I saw this is because it was only over the major papers today.

I know their are definitely RW's who certainly agree with the sentiment of giving the death penalty to these doctors, but based on what I've read in the papers this morning, I'm not sure Republican state officials are going to go that far in actuality. They may use it as a rallying cry to pump up the troops, but I'm not sure it gets much farther than that at this time.

[PDittie]

10. The Dallas News has

a good explanation -- scroll to the bottom:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/071306dntexabortion.1944df5.html

(I haven't been able to Google up the letter of the law.)

[niccolos_smile]

11. Thanks...

I didn't read that part of the Morning News, just the article. Guess I should start paying attention to the bottom of the page. Doh!

Hmm... after reading that, I'm definitely going to need to read that law.

[Czolgosz]

12. That's not even the WORST TEXAS ANTI-CHOICE LAW, this is:

Under Texas' (Orwell inspired) "Woman's Right to Know Act," an abortion of a fetus age 16 weeks or more may be performed only at an ambulatory surgical center or hospital licensed to perform the abortion.

Why is this so bad?

Well, this requirement is medically unnecessary and 94% of Texas counties DO NOT HAVE ANY ambulatory surgical center or hospital licensed to perform such abortions. This means that many women needing 16-week-and-beyond abortions in Texas (and this is about 2% of abortions for which the timing is overwhelmingly due to developing health threats to the mother or the discovery of life threatening birth defects in the fetus) must travel out of town for no medically justified reason simply to have access to their constitutionally protected reproductive health care. This is simply an unnecessary hurdle erected solely to make it more difficult for women to have sovereignty over their own wombs.

But that's not all. The Orwellian "Woman's Right to Know Act" requires the physician to misinform the woman the "possibility of increased risk of breast cancer" following an abortion and the "natural protective effect" of a full-term pregnancy in avoiding breast cancer, and requires the woman to certify in writing that she got this misinformation. THIS BULLSHIT IS NO MORE SCIENTIFICALLY BASED THAN CREATIONISM OR BUSH'S OPPOSITION TO ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTIONS TO REDUCE GLOBAL WARMING!

Remember, when asked about whether they were for or against this bullshit misinformation law, ONLY CHRIS BELL WOULD TAKE A STAND AGAINST THIS INSANE LAW:

Are Texas laws too restrictive for adult women? Would you favor adding new restrictions or repealing current ones?

Bell: The informed-consent requirements should conform to mainstream medical knowledge, which refutes the link between breast cancer and abortion. Medicaid births cost Texas several hundred million dollars a year; let's spend smart and reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.

Friedman: I have mixed feelings on parental notification. On the counseling requirement, I'm not sure, but I know the less I talk to social workers, the better. No issue with the public-funding restrictions, but I would want to investigate further.

Perry: The governor has worked hard to increase the role of parents and guardians in the major life-changing decisions of their young daughters, and minor abortions have dropped significantly. He recently signed a parental-consent law because he believes it will save young lives by further involving parents.

Strayhorn: Declined to answer.

{Info from http://anyonebutc4n3p.blogspot.com/}