The "Parental Consent" charade in Texas was the initial blow to the gut which ruined my plans to vote for Bush last time around.
I tried in vain to get folks to actually read the bill or pay attention to the immediate precedent that was Supreme Court-ordered abortions for minors sans parental notice, much less consent. (These, of course, being only those minor abortions where Mommy the Magistrate hadn't already decided that the girls were mature enough to make this decision.)
The legislation obtained a properly defined Square One and, in the process, gifted the pro-aborts with fasttrack through the system, increased veils of privacy for providers and their shills and capped damages for offending abortionists.
Idiot FReepers tossed their hats in the air, yelling "Don't Mess with Texas!"
I headed to DC where I called the NRLC and asked to meet with their legislative director. Turns out the Texas Legislative Director was covering him that week! We spoke for three hours over lunch.
I was absolutely right ... even where I felt he'd been mispresenting the bill, then, in the newspapers.
Yes, he said, but if girls have the "impression" that they'll have to tell their parents ...
(All they need do is make one phone call to have that much cleared up by a helpful abortion provider or school nurse.)
It's sickening.
You are so right to term the pro-life movement as "bought and paid for" by the GOP who keep them busy-busy-busy with letter writing campaigns and "get out the vote" on behalf of the Personally-Opposed-But potemkin politicians and NRLC.
Abortion is, and always has been, a GOP policy. They were first to pitch it in Congress and the first to make it a "vital" element of our population control policies at home and abroad.
The truth hurts ... but only for a moment. The clarity and reordering of priorities once things FINALLY make sense for a change is well worth the gut-wrenching realization you've been played for a sucker your entire life.
Amen.