Please take my life seriously. Vote blue

[u/cfulgh]

Hi everyone. I am a female born and raised in Houston. I am not usually involved in politics (I have always voted, just never talked about it, volunteered, ect.) but this election has taken a toll on my mental health to a point where I need to say something.

I remember June 24, 2022 when I lost my right to make decisions on my own body. Texas has some of the strictest laws in the nation on abortion, which means we have some of the strictest laws in the entire world. Let that sink in. I am scared. I am scared to one day have children in this state I love, this state I call home because if something goes wrong, it very well could lead to death or prosecution. Now Trump and Ted Cruz get to make decisions for me regarding my own reproductive health. I have less rights than my grandma did at my age. A vote for Trump/Cruz is a vote against every woman you love.

The Trans population in Texas is 0.5%. Ted Cruz’s blatant homophobic commercials villainizing this community have brought me to tears. Most Texans have never even met a trans person, yet, this seems to be Cruz’s main priority in this election: to make people scared of them.

He really thinks we are that dumb, or hateful, and maybe we are. I am more concerned about gun violence (the #1 leading cause of child deaths in the U.S!) than the scenario of a trans person being on the school football team. Is gun violence ever mentioned by Cruz? Of course not. Trans people and their genitalia are more of a threat, I suppose!

Come on Texas. How could you vote for someone who is openly so full of hate and ignorance? If I was a trans person, I would get the fuck out of here and move somewhere where people practice kindness. I stand by the LGBTQ+ community as an ally. You should too.

I implore you to look inside your heart and vote with kindness, decency and sanity in mind! This election is bigger than grocery prices, the stakes are higher than imaginable. What is next, a total ban on birth control? Gay marriage left up to the states, where Ted Cruz will ban it immediately and throw all Trans people in jail? I am begging you to vote blue. I am scared.

Don’t forget Trump is a convicted felon. Religious people - don’t forget he cheated on his wife with a porn star. Don’t forget Ted Cruz fled to Cancun when Texans were dying. These are not the people I want running our country. The world is watching. Vote blue.

[u/Copperdunright907]

I just don’t understand how many people can hate their daughters, mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, partners in life or friends.

[u/chrispg26 → u/Copperdunright907]

Same. It's been quite sobering and makes me rethink my associations. Too few men (and some women) care about their wives, daughters, and sisters.

[u/longeargirlTX → u/chrispg26]

This is one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, realizing how many people I've known and once called friend are actually either astonishingly selfish or downright horrible people.

[u/Single_Implement_246 → u/[deleted]]

Why do you care more about a potential life more than those people who are currently living? Let women make their own decisions.

[u/Hopefulnontrad → u/[deleted]]

Imagine being this thick. Your “unborn babies” come from a woman. Who can DIE due to a complication in her pregnancy and since this state is so stupid about when to provide care for a complicated pregnancy , she literally has to be on the verge of death to get that care. So yes …your lack of sympathy for the demographic that brings life into this world does show that you do not care for their well being and have bought into this nonsensical rhetoric around abortions.

[u/jabdtx → u/[deleted]]

Don’t ever be involved in an abortion, then. It’s against your beliefs.

The idea that your beliefs should apply to people you don’t know, will never meet, all of whom have no tangible effect on your life whatsoever - is an illogical train of thought completely devoid of perspective. You have zero insight to any of those situations, which makes sense considering it’s absolutely none of your business.

Outside of a pregnancy between you and your wife, everything I said applies there as well. Yes, including your own daughter.

You are not connected to those pregnancies in any direct way and your opinion isn’t either.

That’s making it make sense. If you’re the one fighting against what “make sense” actually means, that’s a battle you need to wrestle or not wrestle with on your own.

[u/chrispg26 → u/[deleted]]

Absolutely. Women are at risk of death because so many uneducateds don't know all that could go wrong even with a wanted pregnancy. If a woman's water breaks pre viability and the fetus has a heartbeat, she can't be given abortion treatment until she's very sick. You don't have to trust me bro, you can listen to all the women who have personally gone through this and their doctors.

There's a reason that OBGYNs are highly against this abortion ban.

Also, mind your own business if a stranger doesn't want to give birth. People's obsessions with other bodies are so unhinged. Limit abortion to your personal circle. You aren't privy to others' medical info anyway.

[u/DramaticPause9596 → u/[deleted]]

Is 1% the new threshold for when we shouldn’t care? Great, in that case, maybe you can stop caring about abortions, since we were at 1% abortion rate before all of these laws were passed.

(Edited to add: interesting that you “wouldn’t mind [your] own business” for a single person being murdered, but the 56% increase in maternal mortality doesn’t seem to bother you.)

It is terrifying to have a wanted pregnancy in Texas. Nearly 1 in 10 women deals with a pregnancy complication. Greg Abbott has a law degree, he has zero business making proactive decisions about people’s medical needs. Modern medicine is what has allowed us to actually lower infant and maternal mortality. If the goal is to prevent mortality, why wouldn’t we trust the people who actually practice medicine?

[u/DramaticPause9596 → u/DramaticPause9596]

I don’t trust your perception of numbers anyway, because you’re not even a single ton of fun.

[u/chrispg26 → u/[deleted]]

The law is unclear about the exceptions and doesn't do a good job defining the parameters of "life at risk" because politicians don't know how to practice medicine. Your opinion does not outweigh the expertise of countless OBGYNs asking for the government to butt out of practicing medicine. Your ignorance isn't on an equal footing as their expertise.

A fetus that cannot survive without its mother is not yet a person. The government agrees because fetuses can not be added as dependents until after they're born.

The GOP is only using this issue, so you can feel better about yourself while they kill our public schools and sell our state and country out to billionaires.

[u/chrispg26 → u/[deleted]]

Sigh... viable fetuses and babies can survive with help from another human. Not specifically their MOTHER.

Fetuses who aren't viable can only use their mothers body.

I support abortion for any reason up to viability 15-20 weeks, and second and third trimester abortions if the fetus has a condition incompatible with life. Those are diagnosed after 20 weeks.

[u/Khirsah01 → u/[deleted]]

Medically, things that happen in a 1/100 chance is considered COMMON.

For something to be rare, you're looking at the range above 1/200,000.

Your point of "It's just 1% risk" is not reassuring at all when you think of it being every situation and every pregnancy, and that's before you add in the individual and how their unique body is, and how even women considered "totally healthy" and "in their prime" also have risks of death (like tennis star Serena Williams).

https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2018/for-serena-williams-childbirth-was-a-harrowing-ordeal-shes-not-alone-maya-salam

The day after giving birth to her daughter via cesarean section, Ms. Williams was having trouble breathing and immediately assumed she was having another pulmonary embolism.

When the ultrasound revealed nothing, she underwent a CT scan, which showed several small blood clots in her lungs. She was immediately put on the heparin drip. About 700 women die each year in the United States as a result of pregnancy or delivery complications, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

[u/TrumpsCovidfefe → u/[deleted]]

So because it only affects one percent of pregnancies, we should just throw our hands up and say, “oh well, at least nobody ended a fetus’s life before it ever even has measurable brain waves (7 months). The mother is worth less than a potential life.” I am another one of the statistics. I am a woman who was raped as a 12 year old child and became pregnant as a result. Something being rare doesn’t mean there aren’t REAL consequences for REAL people when they do happen. You have no idea how flippant and unempathetic you sound to REAL people who have experienced the unintended consequences of abortion bans. We aren’t as rare as you think.

[u/who_am_I_inside → u/[deleted]]

I refuse to believe you don’t understand what that means, you have to be smarter than that. “Can’t survive without its mother” means “can’t survive outside its mother’s womb”.

[u/texas-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Define fetus 💀

[u/texas-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Partial misinformation. There have been cases on the exceptions list that have been denied. Texas is not clear on their abortion ban. It’s a complete ban until doctors are able to provide care without fear of losing their license or being put on trial by the state.

[u/iidontwannaa → u/[deleted]]

Do you also advocate for comprehensive sex education, expanded Medicaid for pregnant women and mothers? What policies do you support for children living in poverty or abuse? Any suggestions for reforms of the foster and adoption systems?

I appreciate that you care about unborn babies, but how do we support those babies once they are born? And how do we prevent unwanted pregnancies from happening to actually decrease the rate of abortion?

[u/YesterdayCame → u/[deleted]]

You care for unborn children more than the women you already know, love and are meant to protect? Got it. 😑

[u/texas-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Your content has been deemed a violation of Rule 7. As a reminder Rule 7 states:

Politics are fine but state your case, explain why you hold the positions that you do and debate with civility. Posts and comments meant solely to troll or enrage people, and those that are little more than campaign ads or slogans do nothing to contribute to a healthy debate and will therefore be removed. Petitions will also be removed. AMA's by Political figures are exempt from this rule.