Republicans haven’t thought it through

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To the Editor:

As this nation’s neverending political battle over abortion rights drags on, and on, I see that in my home state of Texas — the Great State of Texas, to us natives — Governor Rick Perry and his minions have enacted legislation aimed at shutting down all, or almost all, of the clinics in Texas where a woman can get a safe and legal abortion.

Texas was created in 1836, when Americans, who had settled Mexican territory by agreement with the Mexican government, took the territory away from Mexico.

Now the territory is gradually and peacefully being re-occupied by people coming from south of the Rio Grande.

I doubt the Republicans want to speed up the inevitable transformation of Texas into a state in which non-Hispanic whites are a minority.

Yet what will be the impact of this legislation, if it becomes virtually impossible to get an abortion in Texas?

Should his daughter turn up pregnant after a hazily remembered night at an Animal House frat party, a deep-pocketed Republican can readily afford to send her out of state for an abortion.

This option may not be available to impecunious women barely able to keep heads above water in minimum wage jobs. Which suggests that the unwanted babies whom Texas mothers will reluctantly carry to term will be disproportionately born to poor women. And poor women are disproportionately black and Hispanic.

When these unwanted babies have grown to voting age in impoverished households, which political party will they find more attractive? It is probable that the net effect of destroying poor Texas women’s access to abortion will be to increase the number of Democratic voters.

Have the Republicans really thought through the long-run consequences of their anti-abortion crusade?

R.E.L. Knight

West Tisbury