I agree with the main point of Silvia Trejo's post about abortion laws in Texas in that the recently passed abortion bill has set back our rights as women by making abortion more difficult to obtain in Texas. I also believe that there are a few ways in which Ms.Trejo could have made her argument stronger. She could have touched on the fact that closing down abortion clinics puts women's lives in danger. There will still be women getting abortions whether it's legal or not, safe or not. There will be an increase in illegal, unsafe abortions. This bill will make women who can't get a legal safe abortion, turn to other, possibly dangerous alternatives. Another topic she could have discussed was the hypocrisy of the pro-life movement. Most "pro-lifers" are all for making women carry their babies to term, but they are generally unconcerned about the fate of the baby once it is born. Other then that I believe Ms.Trejo's argument and anger to be quite justified, she just needed cover more of the effects of women and children in response to the Texas laws concerning abortion.

A stoic man with skin like leather, with principles carved in stone and a general mistrust of change. The kind of man whose pride gets in the way of logical thinking and the ability to accept help when desperately needed. This is how I would personify Texas. I see Texas as the men that I grew up around, admired, and ultimately grew out of. Texas government to me is a perfect example of this old Texas farm boy telling the world “No one can tell me what to do”.

With the combination of outright stubbornness and a lean towards reactionary legislation, Texas government tends to have knee-jerk reactions to issues instead of dedicating itself to find solutions to the underlying problems.

A great example of this is capital punishment. Texas has been killing its citizens for almost 200 years. There are many factors that affect violent crime rates and Texas government chooses to ignore the source of the issue, and is far more interested in dealing with the final product. Things such as untreated mental health issues and poverty greatly contribute to violent crime rates, and as we all know that Texas is not very willing to give aide to its people. Studies show that the death penalty has done very little at slowing down violent crime rates. If there was an effective way to curb the amount of violent criminals in Texas, why wouldn’t we try it out? Is Texas so set in its ways that it ignores the obvious faults in its laws? I’m starting to think so.

Another example is how Texas government deals with healthcare. Instead of our government trying to get healthcare to our poorest citizens, our state chooses to ignore the problem. With the recent attempt of federal assistance for Texas to expand its Medicare programs, and Texas recent decline of that offer, I can’t help but feel a little exhausted. Texas has these increasing social issues and yet we act like there’s nothing wrong, and it’s fine the way things are. The idea of change, giving and receiving help seems so against Texas ways and it’s just slowly crippling us citizens of Texas.

If our government could just snap out of these deeply rooted, embarrassingly Texan ways of legislation, I could rest a little easier.  But the strength of Texas’ pride shows very little chance of wavering as does the impossibility of radical change with how we deal with social issues.