Why Don't Texas Republicans Care About Dying Babies?

The following post is by Jeff Rounder in Reform Austin News:

Since the repeal of Roe v. Wade and the establishment of a near-total abortion ban in Texas, at least 18 newborns were abandoned by their mothers after giving birth, often in trash receptacles and almost always fatally.

Texas has a famously broken natal healthcare system. The Commonwealth Fund, a national women’s health nonprofit, ranked the state the second-worst place to give birth in 2024. The reasons include a failure to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and a resulting high rate of uninsured pregnant people, a crumbling rural healthcare infrastructure, a lack of reproductive health professionals after large-scale exodus following the state’s abortion ban, and Governor Greg Abbott’s recent crackdown on undocumented immigrants using hospital services.

The latter is in the spotlight thanks to a recent newborn abandonment in Houston over the summer. First responders were able to rescue an abandoned baby from a dumpster. His mother, a Guatemalan migrant whose actions were caught on parking lot CCTV cameras, was arrested a few days later. The mother is a teenager named Everilda Cux-Ajtzalam, who was working in a food truck by herself when she left to give birth. Following her arrest, Cux-Ajtzalam said that she didn’t go to a clinic because she was afraid of being deported. She claims a relative raped her, leading to the pregnancy.

Before the fall of Roe, Houston had seven newborn abandonments a year. That number has nearly doubled following the loss of reproductive choice and the hardline crackdown on undocumented immigrants seeking medical attention.

Nor is abandonment the only danger on the rise in the state. Johns Hopkins University observed that infant deaths were up by 12 percent across the board in Texas following the abortion ban. Neglect, violence, and poor post-natal care all contribute to the increasing number of newborn and infant deaths.

 Texas was the first state to establish “Baby Moses” laws (also known as safe haven laws) in 1999. The laws make it legal to surrender a baby that is less than 60 days old at a fire station or other emergency services location. This is supposed to deter people from abandoning children in dumpsters.

In practice, these law are a mixed success at best. The National Safe Haven Alliance estimates 4,000 children have been saved through the practice, but there is no systemic, scientific review of the data to back that up. Nor do they address the hardships surrounding pregnancy for people with limited resources. As Jamie Marsella of the peer-reviewed medical history blog Nursing Clio put it in 2023:

“These laws do nothing to prevent unwanted pregnancies, provide support or resources for victims of domestic violence or assault, or ensure access to contraception or abortion services for those who do not wish to be pregnant. They don’t offer medical care for pregnant people who cannot afford the costs of pregnancy or childrearing, nor do they offer resources for pregnant people who wish to parent their children but fear they can’t due to lack of resources, safety, or employment. Further, they don’t account for the emotional and psychological toll of infant surrender and adoption on either the parent or the child. Even though these laws putatively prioritize the child, they do nothing to ensure that the children involved will find themselves in a safe and caring environment as they grow.”

Abbott's Border Policy Responsible For Children's Deaths

 

The following is by Dan Rather:

Often lost in the gamesmanship of border politics are details of those who tragically die trying to get to this country. In 2022, the most recent year for which records are available, nearly 700 people perished or disappeared trying to come to the United States. The International Organization for Migration says this is the deadliest land route for migrants worldwide. 

 

We received many comments on our post from Tuesday asking for more information about the three people who died crossing the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass, Texas. According to Mexican authorities, the bodies have been identified as Victerma de la Sancha Cerros, 33, and her two children, a 10-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy. They were from a town near Mexico City, hundreds of miles south of Eagle Pass.

Authorities say Victerma’s sister, Mónica de la Sancha Cerros, 30, and her 10-year-old son were rescued by Mexican soldiers. They suffered hypothermia but survived.

The five family members had reportedly formed a human chain to cross the river, but at some point, one of the children broke free, and the strong river currents swept three of them underwater. That’s when Mexican authorities requested help from the U.S. Border Patrol, which was denied access to the area by the Texas State Police and National Guard.

It's Been 10 Years And Nothing Has Been Done By Congress

Ten years ago, a criminal armed with an assault-style rifle entered an elementary school I'm Connecticut and killed 20 6 and 7 year old children and six adult teachers. Reasonable people thought surely this would cause Congress to pass some sensible gun laws -- like banning assault-style weapons and closing the huge loopholes in the background check law.

We were wrong. Congress has done virtually NOTHING that would prevent a repeat of Sandy Hook -- and indeed, it has been repeated in Uvalde, Texas. 

As of December 14th, 628 mass shootings have occurred in the United States this year -- and 42,167 people have died from gun violence.

Republicans whine about the Second Amendment as the reason they refuse to pass sensible gun laws. But neither an assault-style weapon ban nor background checks for ALL gun buyers would violate the Constitution's Second Amendment. The Supreme Court has already ruled about both, and found the constitutional.

The truth is that too many politicians (mainly Republicans) consider gun manufacturer profits (and the campaign donations from them) to be more important than the lives of Americans (both children and adults).

This will not change until these politicians, who have the blood of children on their hands, are voted out of office.

School Deaths Outnumber Military Deaths In 2018

The number of school children that have died as a result of being shot is larger than the number of American military personnel killed this year. That is a shocking statement, but it is true -- as the chart above from the Washington Post shows.

As The Hill reports, there have been 29 school children killed while only 13 service members have been killed (8 of them in a single helicopter crash). This doesn't mean it is more dangerous to go to school than serve in the military. But it does mean that going to school is far more dangerous for a child than it should be.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we have a serious problem of gun violence in the United States -- both in our schools and outside of them. I think most Americans are starting to realize that, and they want something done about it. An overwhelming percentage of Americans want the loopholes in the gun background check law closed. And a smaller, but still substantial majority would like for military-style assault weapons to be banned.

Unfortunately, our Republican-controlled Congress doesn't agree. They won't even let any new gun laws be debated in Congress. They seemed to have decided that the money they receive from the NRA and other gun groups is more important than saving the lives of American children (or adults).

We can fix that this coming November. All it will take is for Americans to take a few minutes to vote.

There Have Been 22 School Shootings (I Blame Congress)

On Friday, there was another school shooting -- this time in a Santa Fe, Texas, high school. Ten people were killed and several wounded. It marks the 22nd school shooting in the United States this year, and the year is only 20 weeks old. That's an average of more than one school shooting every week. And if you look at all mass shootings, the U.S. is averaging about one every single day.

Elected officials (local, state, and national) were quick to send their "thoughts and prayers". Frankly, I'm a little tired of hearing about their "thoughts and prayers". They haven't prevented any school (or mass shootings) in the past, didn't prevent this one, and won't prevent any of the ones in the future. It's time for our politicians to stop the pious posing and actually do something to prevent the more than 30,000 gun deaths in this country every year. We are in the midst of an epidemic, and our elected officials (especially in the U.S. Congress) refuse to do anything about it.

Some will say not is not the time since passions are inflamed over the shooting. That is bullshit! With a school shooting every week and a mass shooting every day, when is the time. The time is NOW!

Some will also claim this epidemic is a mental health problem, and not a gun problem. That's a ridiculous assertion. All developed nations have a problem with mental health, but only one allows the dangerously mentally ill (and criminals and terrorists) to legally buy any kind of gun they desire -- the United States. It is a gun problem.

Some will say we can't do anything because of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That's also ludicrous! Many solutions have been offered that do not violate the Second Amendment, and out Congress won't even discuss them, let alone vote on them.

Some also say there is no "cure-all" that will prevent all mass shooting or gun deaths. That is true. But there are measures that will significantly reduce the number of mass shootings and gun deaths, and actions that would save hundreds or thousands of American lives are well worth doing.

There ar two actions that would significantly reduce gun deaths. We could close the holes in our background check law, and make ALL gun buyers go through a background check (even for purchases from an individual). And we could ban the sale of military-style assault weapons (which are the weapon of choice for most mass shooters). Both actions have been declared constitutional by our Supreme Court.

Some will claim that people will just buy a gun on the black market if they fail a background check. But that's no excuse for letting them legally buy a gun -- and buying from a criminal gun dealer is not as easy as gun nuts would have you believe.

Unfortunately, noting will probably be done (except more thoughts and prayers). That's because too many in Congress are owned by the NRA, and the NRA is owned by the gun manufacturers. Those congressmen have made the decision that the lives of Americans are not as important as getting themselves re-elected. For that reason, I blame Congress for this latest school shooting -- and for the future ones.

Can Something Be Done About Our Gun Problem Now ?

(Cartoon image is by Joe Heller at hellertoon.com.)

In December of 2012, a man took an assault rifle and killed 20 first graders (and six teachers) in Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School. Many of us thought that would spur some action by Congress to address the widespread availability of guns in this country, and its contribution to an ever-growing number of mass shootings (averaging about one every day in the U.S.).

We were wrong. The congressional Republicans showed an amazingly cold-hearted ability to turn their backs on those dead children. They decided that the money they receive from the NRA (and gun manufacturers) was more important to them than the lives of American children. They offered "thoughts and prayers", and then did nothing.

So far this year, we have had at least 18 school shootings -- the most recent being the murder of 17 students and staff in Parkland, Florida. Once again, the nation is outraged. This time the students themselves are trying to start a movement to get something done, and the news networks are helping them pass the word. That's heartening, but the Republicans have shown us in the past that they can ignore a popular movement -- after all, about 90% of Americans support plugging the holes in the background check law, but that hasn't moved Congress to action. There's just too much NRA campaign money to give up!

But we may be seeing the beginning of a movement that could matter. Former Ambassador  (and prominent GOP financier) Al Hoffman, Jr. has declared that he won't give another penny to any Republican candidate that fails to act to ban assault weapons -- and he gives enough to matter. He's also trying to get other top Republican donors on board also. If he can get enough on board with him to seriously affect campaign donations (at least equaling the money from the NRA), that could actually spur the Republicans to take action.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for Republicans to act on the gun violence, but at least someone's now talking about something they care about. They may not care about American lives, but they do care about donations to their own campaigns. In fact, it seems to be the only thing they care about.

Will enough donors come to their senses and join Hoffman? We'll just have to wait and see.

High School Senior Schools American Adults On Gun Control

(Photo of high school senior Emma Gonzales is by Rhona Wise / Getty Images.)

High school senior Emma Gonzalez made an amazing speech just days after 17 people were killed at her high school in Parkland, Florida. This speech should shame all American adults -- both those who want no gun control and those who have not insisted loudly enough that we must act to control guns.

Here is the transcript of her wonderful speech:

We haven’t already had a moment of silence in the House of Representatives, so I would like to have another one. Thank you.

Every single person up here today, all these people should be home grieving. But instead we are up here standing together because if all our government and President can do is send thoughts and prayers, then it’s time for victims to be the change that we need to see. Since the time of the Founding Fathers and since they added the Second Amendment to the Constitution, our guns have developed at a rate that leaves me dizzy. The guns have changed but our laws have not.

We certainly do not understand why it should be harder to make plans with friends on weekends than to buy an automatic or semi-automatic weapon. In Florida, to buy a gun you do not need a permit, you do not need a gun license, and once you buy it you do not need to register it. You do not need a permit to carry a concealed rifle or shotgun. You can buy as many guns as you want at one time.

I read something very powerful to me today. It was from the point of view of a teacher. And I quote: When adults tell me I have the right to own a gun, all I can hear is my right to own a gun outweighs your student’s right to live. All I hear is mine, mine, mine, mine.

Instead of worrying about our AP Gov chapter 16 test, we have to be studying our notes to make sure that our arguments based on politics and political history are watertight. The students at this school have been having debates on guns for what feels like our entire lives. AP Gov had about three debates this year. Some discussions on the subject even occurred during the shooting while students were hiding in the closets. The people involved right now, those who were there, those posting, those tweeting, those doing interviews and talking to people, are being listened to for what feels like the very first time on this topic that has come up over 1,000 times in the past four years alone.

I found out today there’s a website shootingtracker.com. Nothing in the title suggests that it is exclusively tracking the USA’s shootings and yet does it need to address that? Because Australia had one mass shooting in 1999 in Port Arthur (and after the) massacre introduced gun safety, and it hasn’t had one since. Japan has never had a mass shooting. Canada has had three and the UK had one and they both introduced gun control and yet here we are, with websites dedicated to reporting these tragedies so that they can be formulated into statistics for your convenience.

I watched an interview this morning and noticed that one of the questions was, do you think your children will have to go through other school shooter drills? And our response is that our neighbors will not have to go through other school shooter drills. When we’ve had our say with the government — and maybe the adults have gotten used to saying ‘it is what it is,’ but if us students have learned anything, it’s that if you don’t study, you will fail. And in this case if you actively do nothing, people continually end up dead, so it’s time to start doing something.

We are going to be the kids you read about in textbooks. Not because we’re going to be another statistic about mass shooting in America, but because, just as David said, we are going to be the last mass shooting. Just like Tinker v. Des Moines, we are going to change the law. That’s going to be Marjory Stoneman Douglas in that textbook and it’s going to be due to the tireless effort of the school board, the faculty members, the family members and most of all the students. The students who are dead, the students still in the hospital, the student now suffering PTSD, the students who had panic attacks during the vigil because the helicopters would not leave us alone, hovering over the school for 24 hours a day.

There is one tweet I would like to call attention to. So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities again and again. We did, time and time again. Since he was in middle school, it was no surprise to anyone who knew him to hear that he was the shooter. Those talking about how we should have not ostracized him, you didn’t know this kid. OK, we did. We know that they are claiming mental health issues, and I am not a psychologist, but we need to pay attention to the fact that this was not just a mental health issue. He would not have harmed that many students with a knife.

And how about we stop blaming the victims for something that was the student’s fault, the fault of the people who let him buy the guns in the first place, those at the gun shows, the people who encouraged him to buy accessories for his guns to make them fully automatic, the people who didn’t take them away from him when they knew he expressed homicidal tendencies, and I am not talking about the FBI. I’m talking about the people he lived with. I’m talking about the neighbors who saw him outside holding guns.

If the President wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy and how it should never have happened and maintain telling us how nothing is going to be done about it, I’m going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association.

You want to know something? It doesn’t matter because I already know. Thirty million dollars. And divided by the number of gunshot victims in the United States in the one and one-half months in 2018 alone, that comes out to being $5,800. Is that how much these people are worth to you, Trump? If you don’t do anything to prevent this from continuing to occur, that number of gunshot victims will go up and the number that they are worth will go down. And we will be worthless to you.

To every politician who is taking donations from the NRA, shame on you.

If your money was as threatened as us, would your first thought be, how is this going to reflect on my campaign? Which should I choose? Or would you choose us, and if you answered us, will you act like it for once? You know what would be a good way to act like it? I have an example of how to not act like it. In February of 2017, one year ago, President Trump repealed an Obama-era regulation that would have made it easier to block the sale of firearms to people with certain mental illnesses.

From the interactions that I had with the shooter before the shooting and from the information that I currently know about him, I don’t really know if he was mentally ill. I wrote this before I heard what Delaney said. Delaney said he was diagnosed. I don’t need a psychologist and I don’t need to be a psychologist to know that repealing that regulation was a really dumb idea.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa was the sole sponsor on this bill that stops the FBI from performing background checks on people adjudicated to be mentally ill and now he’s stating for the record, ‘Well, it’s a shame the FBI isn’t doing background checks on these mentally ill people.’ Well, duh. You took that opportunity away last year.

The people in the government who were voted into power are lying to us. And us kids seem to be the only ones who notice and our parents to call BS.Companies trying to make caricatures of the teenagers these days, saying that all we are self-involved and trend-obsessed and they hush us into submission when our message doesn’t reach the ears of the nation, we are prepared to call BS. Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call BS. They say tougher guns laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS. They say no laws could have prevented the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. We call BS. That us kids don’t know what we’re talking about, that we’re too young to understand how the government works. We call BS.

If you agree, register to vote. Contact your local congresspeople. Give them a piece of your mind.

Another Black Life Did Not Matter To Police

The young man pictured here is Jordan Edwards -- a fifteen-year-old 9th grader with over a 3.5 grade point average. He has never been in legal trouble. Last Saturday night, he was shot and killed by a policeman in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs.

He was leaving a party with some of his friends. None of them were intoxicated, and none of them were armed with any kind of weapon. The Balch Springs police chief tried to justify the shooting by claiming the car the youth was riding in was backing up toward the police in an aggressive manner.

That was not true, and the police chief changed his story after it was revealed that videotape existed that showed the car was not backing toward the police -- it was going forward and away from the police. In other words, no police officer (or anyone else) was being endangered at the time of the shooting (done by an officer with a rifle) -- and there was no justification for the shooting.

This happens far too often in this country -- and sadly, that will probably continue now that Donald Trump is president. He has already demonstrated that he comes down on the side of police in every incident. And with white supremacists in the White House and a racist as Attorney General, some of the more racist officers seem to feel justified in treating Black lives differently than those of Whites.

Kelly Macias in Daily Kos says:

This is an all-too-common occurrence: black teens are 21 more times likely to be shot and killed by police than their white peers. So despite what naysayers want to believe, this happens routinely. It is happening with alarming frequency. White bodies are not met with the kind of state-sanctioned violence that black bodies are met with. Again, white honor students do not go to parties and get shot by police. Police violence against black people is a serious problem—one that needs to be addressed immediately, and one that will only get worse with unabashed white supremacists running our government. 

 I agree. THIS MUST STOP!

Has Israel Gone Too Far With Latest Attack On Gaza ?

Israel is still continuing its war on Gaza, and so far, more than a thousand inhabitants of Gaza have been killed -- at least a third of them have been children. Israel's excuse for the invasion and killings were to locate and destroy tunnels built by Hamas to allow them to get into Israel. It's hard to understand though how the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza civilians is helping to accomplish that -- including the bombing of a hospital, a U.N. refugee camp, and a group of children playing on the beach.

The American people have always been solidly behind Israel, but I have to wonder if the Israelis haven't gone too far this time -- far enough to start eroding some of that American support. The Pew Research Center also wondered about that, and that did a survey asking Americans whether the Israelis had gone too far with these latest attacks on Gaza. The survey was taken between July 24th and 27th of a random nationwide sample of 1,005 adults, and has a 3.6 point margin of error.

As the chart above shows, the support for this latest Israeli aggression is not absolute. Note that pluralities of Democrats, Blacks, and Hispanics all say that Israel has gone too far this time -- and those between 18 and 29 are split on the matter. About one out of every four Americans (25%) agree with that. Meanwhile 35% say the Israeli action was appropriate.

But the most troubling aspect of the survey is that 15% of Americans (and more of some groups) say the Israelis haven't been harsh enough. Evidently killing nearly 400 children and hundreds of innocent civilians is Ok with them. Keeping Gaza as a giant concentration camp, and depriving its citizens of adequate food and medical supplies is not enough for these folks. They want blood, and they don't care if it's the blood of children or innocents.

Frankly, I'm shocked at the attitude of these people. There is a line beyond which it is just immoral to cross -- and that applies to all countries, even Israel. As horrible as the holocaust against the Jews in World War II was, it doesn't give them the right to slaughter innocents and children in Gaza.

We Are Number One (Unfortunately)

You'd have to be insane to think this problem can be solved with more guns. It was created because we have too many guns in the U.S., and they are too easily accessible to any nut-job that wants one. Do we have the common sense and political will to fix this problem?

Another Embarrassing #1 For Texas

Last week, we learned that Texas was #1 in the amount of teenagers having babies. That was embarrassing enough, but today we learn that Texas is the not-so-proud holder of another #1 record -- child deaths in hot cars!

Texas leads the nation in the amount of children who have died after being left in cars during our brutally hot summers. Since 1998, at least 41 children have died from being left in or becoming trapped in a hot car. That is 12% of the national total.

I have to admit that I just don't understand this. Anyone who has been in Texas for even a few days during one of our summers has to know how hot our cars get inside when they are parked. And it doesn't take long. In 90-100 degree temperatures, a car can become incredibly hot inside it when left for only a few minutes.

Please don't leave your children in your car while you pop in somewhere "for a few minutes". It may be a lot of trouble to take your kids in with you, but it could also save their lives. Our Texas summers are far too hot to take the chance.

This is a #1 rating we can do without!