This excerpt was originally published in The Dallas Morning News. You can access the full article here.
by Hara Person and Rabbi Nancy Kasten
Across the country, trigger bans dismantling reproductive choice and eradicating critical health care have overrun the states that we once felt were safe, and Texas is no exception.
Reproductive health care clinics are shutting down, leaving many people without access to any kind of reproductive and other health care. Doctors are being threatened with a felony charge and life in prison for performing an abortion. People are being tracked and terrorized after the passage of a Texas law offering bounties of at least $10,000 to sue anyone who helped a woman get an abortion. Women are being persecuted, and their perpetrators — legislators, the religious right, and all those who want to strip women of their fundamental rights — are claiming to take away these rights because the Bible told them so.
Somehow, the religious right — many of whom have infiltrated the Texas Legislature — has become the ultimate judge of what constitutes acceptable medical practice, and they have worked tirelessly to ensure that Texas be synonymous with “anti-abortion.” But that voice is not in the best interest of those needing reproductive health care.