RedState's Friday WaterCooler! 12/2/2016 - Open Thread - Anniversary of San Bernadino; Texas Rule Gets it Right

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Texas Rule Gets it Right

*Warning – the following is at times graphic and may not be suitable for some readers.

new rule has been adopted to amend a Texas provision that regulates the treatment and disposition of fetal tissue. The amended code will clarify, for the confused, the difference between a developing infant and medical waste.

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“Abortion providers generally use third-party special waste services to dispose of fetal remains. Previous rules allowed fetal remains, along with other medical tissue, to be ground up and discharged into a sewer system, incinerated, or handled by some other approved process before being disposed of in a landfill.” – Washington Post

Texas will not discriminate based on its stage of gestation nor method of birth. Other than procedures occurring or performed in the home, a child born in any health care facility that previously required disposal as “medical waste” will be necessary to follow the new rules.

“After months of fierce opposition from abortion rights advocates and the medical community, Texas will require fetal remains to be cremated or buried instead of disposed in sanitary landfills.

On Monday [28 November], health officials finalized the new rules prohibiting hospitals, abortion clinics and other health care facilities from disposing of fetal remains — regardless of the period of gestation.”

Although the revision will take effect on the 18th of this month, Republicans, in anticipation of push back from the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, have begun legislation to institute the rule.

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“Because the rules fall under the rulemaking authority of the state health department, they do not need legislative approval. But Republican lawmakers have already filed legislation to write the rules into statutory law when the legislature reconvenes in January, the Texas Tribune reported.”

This past March Indiana passed a law providing specific guidelines for health care facilities for the disposition of an aborted fetus. The bill was opposed and has since been adjudicated and suspended by a federal judge, “finding that it violated U.S. Supreme Court precedents protecting a woman’s right to choose an abortion and the right to privacy in making that decision.”

In contrast to Indiana’s law, Texas code would allow parental privacy.

“Following criticism from medical providers, the state’s Health and Human Services Commission clarified … it does not require birth or death certificates to be filed, to maintain confidentiality.”

No compassion for the parent is enough to preclude abortion rights activists and providers from determining to block an infant’s right to dignity.

David Brown, senior staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, on Monday said the rule was “an unnecessary burden and an intrusion” on a woman’s personal beliefs. “These new restrictions reveal the callous indifference that Texas politicians have toward women,”

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The Washington Post article included one woman’s testimony that summed up why the amendment offers compassion for the child and the parents.

Women who attended the hearing in August provided testimonials with mixed responses and personal details. One woman said she felt a great deal of closure burying a fetus after she had a miscarriage.

Personal notes:

Why will a mother weep at the loss of a 13-week fetus from a miscarriage, but when that same parent chooses an abortion for a 13-week fetus it is medical waste?

Ire from Pro-Life advocates is incomplete. Creation of a baby is codependent on an egg and sperm. That means a woman and a man comingle to conceive a child. If one believes a fetus is worthy of life from conception, and the mother is responsible for its life, then one can only conclude its father is equally responsible for its life and manner of death.


Today in History. 2 December 2015. On this day in San Bernadino, California, two Islamic terrorists began a shooting spree that would end the lives of eleven Americans and three immigrants and seriously injure twenty-two others.

Leaving their six-month-old infant with a relative, the ISIS influenced pair approached the San Bernadino Inland Regional Center at 10:58 am killing two outside. They then spent more than 100 rounds from four (legally purchased) semi-automatic weapons into a banquet room of nearly eighty celebrating Christmas at an office party.

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Law enforcement was onsite three minutes and 32 seconds from the initial 9-1-1 call rushing to flush out the perpetrators and aid the wounded. One officer was shot and another injured by shrapnel during a firefight that ensued. At 3:14:53 the “homegrown violent extremists” were dead.

 


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