More Time Wasted in the Legislature

Among a number of other bills recently debated by the Texas legislature, one I roll my eyes at the hardest is HB 35, which would require burial or cremation of aborted fetal tissue. Another bill, SB 8, bans the use of fetal tissue in medical research! I'm not sure why republicans are so concerned with someone else's fetus but I'm trying to make some sense of it. I suppose they might be picturing cute, fully formed babies being cruelly chucked in a dumpster by evil high-fiving feminists?

This rule has already been attempted here not long ago, and was blocked by a federal judge. Why is anyone still pushing it? Most fetal remains aren't really even substantial enough to be cremated and funeral directors are worried about the burden this might put on them as well. This is also an obvious indicator that republican lawmakers still don't care about the personal decisions of women. I find it sort of hard to believe that they truly care so deeply about the dignity of fetuses when they obviously don't care about the dignity of transgender children and adults.

Aside from the absurdity of these bills, I feel like this, along with the bathroom argument, is a laughable waste of time. For a legislature that meets only once every two years in a huge and populous state to be wasting time on stuff like this is a joke. I don't think most people spend the day-to-day worrying about what a woman decides to do with aborted fetal tissue and if you do you need a hobby. I strongly believe it should be up to the woman to decide what should be done and medical research should absolutely be an option. None of these bills seek to outlaw abortion, just waste time and money and interfere with scientific research.

Reply to "Clash of the Classrooms"

I completely agree with Jonah Hernandez's post about SB 3, "Clash of the Classrooms". The bill's supporters make it sound like an overall positive, allowing any student to attend whichever school they want and opening up access to better education for all students. That sounds nice but maybe not so realistic in practice. As Jonah points out, there are generally not many private schools near the poorest areas of cities, and it sounds like we're just subsidizing private school tuition when we should be using that money to improve public schools. Improving public schools benefits the majority and not just a few. I don't imagine people would be looking for alternatives to their local public schools if the schools were adequate, unless they have religious reasons, in which case that shouldn't be subsidized anyway. Public schools are already horrifically underfunded. We should be putting efforts into improving the education that the majority of students have access to. Better pay for teachers, better programs, and better facilities.