Op-ed: Jessica Farrar’s Invective on House floor Signals Weakened Abortion Lobby in Texas Legislature
Jessica Farrar (D-Houston) has spent time during this 84th Session of the Texas Legislature on regaining ground lost to Pro-Life legislation over the last decade or so. As Texas and the nation become more Pro-Life, harridans like Farrar become more afraid. And Farrar’s disjointed diatribe on the House floor last week indicates that the abortion lobby is a bit frazzled as the 2015 legislative session concludes. Watch the awkward monologue, shared by Farrar’s fawning supporters at NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, below:
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Although Farrar’s thoughts are painfully scattered, she does recycle her tired soundbite: that we should feel sorry for her because she has had to deal with “misogyny” from the Pro-Life male legislators. So many men. So much misogyny. On Thursday, Farrar lamented about some bill on breastfeeding, and yet when Armando Walle’s (D-Houston) bill about breastfeeding, HB 786, passed on Monday, no one challenged his misogynist cred as a male legislator in regard to so-called women’s issues. Men do father unborn children, and since males are victims of abortion, why should men be silent on the slaughter of their own kind or their own flesh and blood?
But is Farrar’s characterization of misogynist Pro-Lifers accurate, let alone fair? Hardly. And Not. Even. Close. Pro-Life Senator Konni Burton (R-Fort Worth) kicked off (pun intended) her first legislative session with a newsworthy Pro-Life fashion statement and then sponsored legislation that would protect young Texas girls from the predatory antics of Big Abortion. And then there is the dynamic female duo, Senator Lois Kolkhorst and Representative Molly White, who together are championing bills in the Senate and House to protect women from coerced abortions. Representative Jodie Laubenberg (R-Parker/Murphy) protected female babies at the 5-month development mark from brutal dismemberment in 2013 through the passage of historic HB 2, the Pro-Life Omnibus Bill.
Predictably, Farrar opposes all these pro-woman protections. To cement any doubts about her extremism, she filed HB 708, a radically dehumanizing bill intended to undermine the state’s law that requires informed consent before an abortion. So Farrar wants women to have unmitigated access to abortion, but she doesn’t want women to know the risks and impact of this child-killing procedure. This is reproductive justice?
But ignoring and drowning all these female voices for Life is Farrar’s monotonous battle cry (yawn!). As male and female children are led to the table of sacrifice in abortion mills, Farrar stomps on their ash heap, roaring about some political landscape that never was and never will be in Texas. Abortion and promotion of abortion perpetuate the paternalistic attitudes about which Farrar incessantly drones.
Real men use their voices to stand for the most vulnerable in our society, including but not limited to women and children. If Farrar’s life were in danger, these same misogynists in the Texas Legislature would move to protect and defend her, as they do all endangered lives, without a thought to her incendiary remarks. Pro-Life legislation is fundamentally pro-woman, equipping women to continue pregnancies by expanding the wide array of free support services during and after the pregnancy. Misogyny? Hardly. Empowering? Definitely!
Tags: farrar, legislation