home with the armadillo

In my latest periodic foray into doing a yell on the internet about pissy shit, I expound upon my Twitter thread about artificial intelligence being mostly exciting to creepo dipshits, tie in some “cancel culture” critique, and use the phrase “key teleological flaw” like a big asshole.

Just sent out the latest edition of my weekly news roundup, Hard to Believe It's Only Tuesday!

This week: She Needed An Abortion; the Judge Told Her 'No.'

It's not that I don't like the way this looks, or think it couldn't be fashionable. (I don't care!) Rather, I have a strong visceral reaction to this look because you had to be really, really careful about making sure you didn't look like this when we were kids. I was a Jncos/Kikwear devotee in junior high and high school; I had one pair of Kiks that hit right at the ground when I had my Airwalks on -- you could see just the barest edge of the midsole when I was standing up straight, and my socks when I was sitting down. Which is to say: they were too short by many orders of emo/skater/xXxedgexXx magnitude. The kids I hung out with roasted me mercilessly for wearing that one pair of pants, one time.

Please allow 18-year-old Andrea Grimes, Mansfield High School Class of '02, to demonstrate thw shortest possible acceptable big pants length. These were my least big pants, the only big pants my mother would consent to me wearing in my senior photos.

You will note that you can tell I have feet here -- you can even tell what color my (extremely fucking cool) shelltoes were. This is not ideal, but it wouldn't get you bullied. You can tell by the wear on the heels of these pants that I typically wore them very low on my hips, to make them appear even bigger and baggier.

I suspect the origins of this kind of niche, pant-related bullying were class-related, at least at my massive Texas high school. If you couldn't afford to get your pants big -- if you had to wear hand-me-downs in the wrong size, or had to wear the same pair for so long you grew out of them -- you ended up with the highwater Jncos, and you would absolutely be punished for it. It sucked. It was awful. And none of us are going to try to relive that, no matter how stylish the young folks look.

I imagine Baytown GOP House Rep. Briscoe Cain struggles a lot in his daily life, just with the routine challenges that come with being a miserable little yeehaw fucko, but I would love to hear how he came to file HB 521, a bill that would enable pregnant people, as the sole occupants of their vehicles, to use the HOV lane.

On the one hand: As a Republican and especially as a Baytown Republican who lives to serve the kings of oil and gas, Cain has a sworn duty to fuck the environment 50 ways from Sunday at every opportunity, so he surely can’t be happy supporting HOV lanes, which are for liberal snowflakes who hate Jesus so much that they are willing to do just one bare-minimum thing which makes their lives slightly easier and has the side benefit of potentially slowing the deterioration of earth into a fiery inferno? 

But on the other hand, teh baybeeeez!??!?!

It’s gotta be a real dilemma for a dude already faced with picking out which big-boy hat he’s going to wear today.

The question of fetuses in HOV lanes, while not new, made news this summer when a Plano, TX woman contested a ticket claiming she had a right to drive in the multi-occupant lane. When the Dallas Morning News asked a state anti-abortion group for comment, they noted that the Texas Transportation Code does not explicitly consider a fetus a person (they believe the penal code does). Cain’s bill would amend the transportation code thusly:

Sec. 545.429.  USE OF HIGH OCCUPANCY VEHICLE LANE BY PREGNANT OPERATOR. An operator of a motor vehicle who is pregnant is entitled to use any high occupancy vehicle lane in this state regardless of whether the vehicle is occupied by a passenger other than the operator's unborn child.

Pre-filing has begun for the 88th Texas Legislature, which convenes in January, and there are 11 bills pertaining to abortion so far, most seeking to mitigate the damage done by the state’s abortion ban and the Dobbs ruling. The link above ^ should refresh as new bills are filed -- these are the ones listed as of Tuesday morning, November 15th.

Yes:

HB 27, from Austin-area Democrat Rep. Vikki Goodwin, protects employers who offer abortion support benefits to employees

SB 78, from Dallas Democrat Sen. Nathan Johnson, would allow the prescription of medication abortion care, superseding any other laws/ordinances that prohibit the provision of care. 

SB 79, also from Sen. Johnson, would deauthorize criminal, civil, and/or administrative penalties or liabilities for people who get abortions. (State law already technically prohibits this, but that doesn’t stop prosecutors from trying it, anyway. I’m assuming this would strengthen that provision.)

SB 122, from Senate Democrats Alvarado, Blanco, Eckhardt, Gutierrez, Menéndez, Miles, West, and Whitmire, would make it somewhat easier for a person who’s been sexually assaulted to seek a clinical abortion in Texas/for a provider to offer such care, by stripping requirements that pregnant folks engage with law enforcement before seeking care.

SB 123, from Senate Democrats Alvarado, Blanco, Eckhardt, Gutierrez, Menéndez, Miles, West, and Whitmire, would somewhat lift burdens for physicians and providers in Texas when it comes to determining health-related exceptions to the state abortion ban, including putting into statute that a “medical review process” cannot overrule a physician or pregnant person.

SB 203, from Senate Democrats Eckhardt, Alvarado, Gutierrez, and Menéndez, dictates that doctors prioritize a pregnant person’s health and health care decisions, “regardless of whether the treatment poses a risk of injury or death to the fetus.”

SB 227, from Senate Democrats Eckhardt, Alvarado, Gutierrez, Johnson, and Menéndez, repeals Texas’ abortion bans.

SJR 21, from Senate Democrats Eckhardt, Alvarado, Gutierrez, Johnson, and Menéndez, proposes a constitutional amendment securing “the right to personal reproductive autonomy.”

SJR 23, Senate Democrats Eckhardt, Alvarado, Gutierrez, Johnson, and Menéndez, proposes a constitutional amendment “establishing the right to be free from governmental intrusion or interference into an individual’s private life.”

No:

HB 61, from North Texas Republican Candy Noble, which prohibits governmental entities (read: the city of Austin, which lives rent-free in state Republicans’ heads 24/7/365) from offering practical support such as child care, lodging, travel funds, etc., to people seeking abortion care

HB 319, from Harris County Republican Rep. Tom Oliverson, deals with so-called “conscience clauses,” protecting health care providers who don’t want to provide health care to people.    

HB 522, from Baytown Republican Briscoe Cain, probably the Lege’s most batshit anti-abortion blowhard, designating June 24th Texas’ “Celebration of Life” day. (Wendy Davis’ famous filibuster was June 25, 2013, I imagine these things are somehow related.)

Fun fact: my husband is the podcast producer at Texas Monthly, and his team has been working all year on White Hats, a podcast about the Texas Rangers and their history of anti-Mexican violence along the border. The show launches today, and I recommend giving it a listen if you’re into Texas history, especially Texas history that takes a sharply critical look at the legacies and lies of law enforcement.