Autocracy on the March: The Texan Front

Let us begin with the obligatory — but still sadly necessary — blast at Texas’s devious and sickening new law that for all practical purposes outlaws abortion in that state, in violation of what the US Supreme Court has previously ruled, and deputizes vigilantes to enforce it.

The same GOP that believes in “my-body-my-choice!” when it comes to anti-vaxxers refusing to prevent the spread of COVID-19 will now force women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, even in cases of rape or incest. That same party will mandate that a 12-year-old girl raped by her stepfather must go through with the pregnancy, but not that that girl must wear a mask in school, because that’s “governmental overreach.” The same Republicans who are terrified of fictional “vaccination squads” directed by Oberführer Fauci going door-to-door somehow managed to pass the most intrusive kind of governmental policy imaginable, one which incentivizes Texans to spy and inform on their neighbors for cash.

No one will be shocked to learn that the Texas law says absolutely nothing about the men who impregnate these women, not even rapists, all of whom are completely absolved of any responsibility or legal repercussions.

I write screenplays for a living, and they would throw me out of the Writers Guild if I pitched this as a movie idea. That’s the realm of Atwoodian…