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the covert campaign against liberal chuches and the social justice tradition
[above: click on image for YouTube video trailer]"Renewal or Ruin": New Video Documentary By Steve D. Martin Spotlights Secretive Rightwing Effort To Destroy Mainstream Protestant Churches
Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, by Frederick Clarkson
Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort
by Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons
sample chapter
God's Profits: Faith, Fraud and the Republican Crusade For Values Voters
By Sarah Posner
Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History
By Chris Rodda
Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism
: by Michelle Goldberg
With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy, and Democracy in George W. Bush's White House.
by Esther Kaplan
Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement
Tanya Erzen
Attack on The United Churches of Christ
Attack on The United Methodist Church
"The Christian Right, Dominionism, and Theocracy", by Chip Berlet
"Taking Over The Republican Party", a four part series by Joan Bokaer
The Woman in A Mink CoatWhile We Were sleepingAngels On a PinheadUnder Cover of Night
The Indian River Incident : What You Can Do
link > The "Stop the ACLU Coalition" Shaming Project
How you can help stop "Stop The ACLU" just by sending a few emails
The Shaming Projectdoes the violence of "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" bother you ? If so, what can you do ? Well, to begin with you can email Jonathan Hutson's stories to people you know. That will help to bring more public scrutiny of the game. Public shaming really works ! Just click on the "email" icon and link at the top or bottom of the story and you'll be taken to a form that will allow you email the first story, The Purpose Driven Life Takers or the latest installment without leaving this site. Thanks.
The Texas Baby Purchasing Act of 2007 |
| Thu Mar 22, 2007 at 02:14:37 AM EST |  print story | |
 Texas State Sen. Dan Patrick, author of a current proposal to criminalize safe abortion care, has figured out that adoption tax credits have a serious limitation: they don't do anything at all to increase the number of newborn babies available for adoption in the first place. But Senator Dan's the man with a plan to even out the shortfall. Under Patrick's SB 1567, AKA the Texas Baby Purchasing Act of 2007, women would qualify for a $500 payment from the state within 60 days of signing away all parental rights to their newborn children. If Patrick gets his way, childbearing in the service of the state won't be just creepy Handmaid's Tale fiction anymore. How's that for some moral family values? |
| topic: Reproductive Rights |
Like Rep. Ken "Rumpelstiltskin" Paxton's HB 224 creating "Choose Life" plates, Patrick's bill benefits only women who give up children for adoption. A woman who might wish to continue her pregnancy and mother her own child, a woman who has an abortion only because of economic hardship, is left out in the cold. Maybe Patrick figures that "the kind of woman who has an abortion" will do anything for $500 -- because no other pregnant women in the state would be subjected to the indignity of being forced by law to listen to his sales pitch.
CHAPTER 50. ADOPTION INCENTIVE PROGRAM(a) The department shall develop a program to encourage pregnant women to place their children for adoption rather than have an abortion.
(b) The program must include a $500 payment to each woman who is a resident of this state and a citizen of the United States who places a child for adoption rather than have an abortion.
Sec. 50.002. APPLICATION FORM.
(a) The department shall develop an application form to be used by a woman who applies for funds under this chapter.
(b) The department may only distribute the application forms to abortion providers.
At least Patrick is doing his best to make sure that the state doesn't get snookered into buying any "illegal" babies.
In order to ensure that no low-income "legal" woman misses out on this chance of a lifetime, Patrick's bill forces doctors who provide abortion care, under penalty of law, to make the state's pitch in person to every potential producer of an adoptable baby.
Sec. 50.005. NOTIFICATION REQUIRED; APPLICATION FORM.(a) Notification of the program under this chapter is required as part of the informed consent requirements under Chapter 171.
(b) An abortion provider shall distribute a copy of the funds application form to each woman who comes to the provider seeking an abortion.
All potential baby suppliers should be advised that Sen. Patrick's offer is good for a limited time only. In order to qualify for payment, a woman would have to sign over her newborn within 30 days after giving birth, because there's just not much demand for older children. Heck, the orphanages are full of them already.
Sec. 50.003 APPLICATION. A woman requesting funds under this chapter must apply for the funds on the form developed by the department not later than the 30th day after the date the child is born.Sec. 50.004 PAYMENT OF FUNDS.
(a) The department shall process each application for funds under this chapter to determine whether the woman is eligible. If the woman is eligible for funds, the department shall make the payment to the woman not later than the 60th day after the date the woman's parental rights are terminated.
What's that you say? Selling and buying babies is against the law? Why yes, according to the Texas Penal Code, I believe it is.
Sec. 25.08. Sale or Purchase of Child.
(a) A person commits an offense if he:
(1) possesses a child younger than 18 years of age or has the custody, conservatorship, or guardianship of a child younger than 18 years of age, whether or not he has actual possession of the child, and he offers to accept, agrees to accept, or accepts a thing of value for the delivery of the child to another or for the possession of the child by another for purposes of adoption; or
(2) offers to give, agrees to give, or gives a thing of value to another for acquiring or maintaining the possession of a child for the purpose of adoption.
But not to worry, because Dan the Man's got that one covered.
Section 25.08, Penal Code, does not apply to the grant or acceptance of money under this section.
When is selling and buying babies not selling and buying babies?
All together now: "It's OK if you're a Republican!" And it's even more than OK when you're also a water boy for the religious right.
[An earlier version of this post appeared at Texas Kaos]
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