Roundup: Don't Mess With Texas!

Roundup: Don’t Mess With Texas!

Jan 7, 2010, 8:12am

Robin Marty

Abortion Super Centers! Huge Protests! Giant Cash Registers! Everything is bigger in Texas! And, a few lessons in Caveat Emptor.

I need to make a few things clear before we start out. I once dated a Texan for three years. I spent few months in Austin with him at one point. And I got "yall" permanently stuck in my vocabulary, despite it being over 10 years ago. Based on these facts, I feel I have earned the right to make Texas jokes. So proceed at your own peril.

Rumor has it that everything is bigger in Texas. The land, the hats, the Bush family’s enormous egos. So it should come as no shock that the anti-choice activists’ outrage over a new Planned Parenthood clinic in Houston is huge as well. Dubbing it the "abortion super-center," they are planning to protest it — big time!

A national group of pro-life leaders is planning a protest in
Houston, Texas on Jan. 18, following Planned Parenthood’s announcement
that it plans to renovate a six story building into a late-term
abortion facility.

The building, formerly belonging to a bank and shaped like a cash
register, will be transformed into a 78,000 square foot clinic and is
expected to be one of the largest in the nation. It will also include a
surgical wing capable of providing late-term abortions.

Get it? It’s a giant cash register! Because Planned Parenthood likes to abort babies for fun and profit!

Some local reaction has been, well, amused, to say the least. "An ‘abortion super center’?" the Houston Press quips. "Does it offer a lot of hors d’oeuvres in
the aisles? Are the prices cheaper because you’re buying bulk?"

Unphased, the anti-choice movement is planning their super-sized protest for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, in the hopes of evoking the leader in their quest to "protect the rights of unborn children," claiming that the new building is targeting minorities.

Bound 4 Life explains that the new Planned Parenthood facility is
located in the midst of four minority communities, three of them 85
percent Hispanic and one 80 percent African-American. This latest
facility, at 4600 Gulf Freeway, is the fourth in a string of new
Planned Parenthood minority-targeting "super centers" in the United
States. The others are in Colorado, Illinois, and Florida, but the new
center dwarfs even the largest of these. In fact, the only larger one
in the world is in China. Bound 4 Life claims that 76 percent of
Planned Parenthood’s facilities are strategically located in minority
communities.

As the Houston Press points out, it’s actually quite isolated from the neighborhoods, but "any old rhetorical device in a storm."

Houston Press also spoke to a Planned Parenthood spokesperson, who stated that the center isn’t actually opening for months, so the really big show will mainly be for the construction workers on the site.

Mini Roundup – It’s a "let the buyer beware" lesson today. If you plan an illegal adoption, you’ll probably get what you pay for. And if you try to support "pro-choice" Republicans, don’t be shocked if your donations don’t go anywhere.

p class=”MsoNormal”>
January 7, 2010

Dems
Confirm: Health Negotiations Shut to Public Lifesite

Reader’s
view: Plenty of pro-life
Democrats to be found Duluth News Tribune

Woman
allegedly involved in adoption
case heads to court WAOW

Pro-life
leaders criticize ‘abortion super center’ in Texas Catholic News Agency

January 6, 2010

Blogs
Comment On Health Reform, Abortion-Rights Fundraising, Age Of Consent …
Medical News Today (press release)

The
Money Pit Atlantic
Online

EMILY’s
List Chief Malcolm Retiring National Journal

Repealing
Hyde NARAL
Pro-Choice Maryland Blog

Antis
outside Louisville, KY clinic start wearing fake escort vests Feministing

CBS’
Medical Correspondent Gives Mixed Messages on Teen Sex NewsBusters