Proposed Texas Law: Women Seeking Abortions Must Take Adoption Class

EXTREE EXTREE READ ALL ABOUT IT! New dumb thing happening in Texas! The latest insultingly stupid proposed law would require any woman seeking an abortion to take a 3 hour adoption class beforehand. Because apparently the Lone Star State’s zealot legislators and their zealot-in-chief Rick Perry think women are such idiotic simpletons that they don’t know that adoption is a thing. Gee, what would women do with their bodies if men who probably can’t bring themselves to say “vagina” aloud without blushing weren’t around to educate them?

So let’s say you’re a woman in Texas and you want to terminate your pregnancy. In addition to the insane loopholes you already have to go through (a 24-hour waiting period, a mandatory ultrasound followed by a state-mandated description of the fetus that must occur at least 24 hours before the abortion if you live within 100 miles of an abortion clinic, and a “counseling session”), if SB-42 passes, you’ll also have to take an “adoption class” that will take 3 hours. From the bill (name TBD — but I vote we call it the What, It’s Not Like Childbirth Hurts Or Anything Bill),

Except as provided by Section 171.102, a pregnant woman may not obtain an abortion unless the woman completes the adoption education course described by Subsection (a) and submits the certificate of completion to the physician performing or inducing the abortion. The course must be completed not more than 30 days and not less than 24 hours before the abortion is performed or induced.

Before you get all gaspy and hysterical about the obnoxiousness of this proposed requirement, LADIES, there would be exceptions. For example, if you’re a woman and your physical (but not psychological) health is in imminent danger, the good conservatives of Texas’s legislature will grant you the favor of not having to take an online “adoption education” class and printing out a certificate while you hemorrhage on the hospital floor. Further, if you’re a teen and you’ve been raped or incest’d, you don’t need to worry about taking the class provided you can prove you reported the rape or incest to the police. So, you just need to prove to the state of Texas that you’re literally going to die or that you told a cop you were raped. Easy-peasy, right?

All of this raises very important questions. First: Do Texas conservatives think women are stupid? That they don’t know what pregnancy is? That they don’t know what abortion is? That they’re not aware that adoption exists? That they’re too dumb to understand that while adoption is an alternative to motherhood, it is not an alternative to pregnancy? I guess you can only expect so much out of people when you’re continually harping on abstinence-only education, but seriously.

Since women would apparently forget how to wipe themselves after using the bathroom without the interjection of megachurch Texans with combovers and unironic belt buckles, I hope the Texas legislature offer their expertise to another lady issue next. I vote how to insert tampons. A 3 hour video starring Rick Perry that rewards those of us who can complete it without barfing with a printable certificate.