The most unexpected thing about my precinct convention was not that 145 Democrats came out of my neighborhood's woodwork to caucus. It was that we had resolutions to vote on. We thought we'd done a good evening's work by signing in and selecting delegates, but then we had to get through a stack of obtusely worded resolutions read aloud by a volunteer. Surprise!
I also didn't expect some of the resolutions to sound like they came from the far-right wing of the GOP. Most of the resolutions were just about what you'd expect from Democrats: calls for the impeachment of Bush (too little, too late, but I offered up a 'yea' for old time's sake), opposition to the death penalty, a call for DHS to seek out alternatives to the kid-incarcerating mess at T. Don Hutto. Nothing too shocking.
Then there was a sweet, innocent sounding little resolution to offer state funding for
pregnancy crisis centers. Who can argue with that? One guess.
"What exactly do these crisis centers
do?" I asked.
One of my neighbors, a very nice older man, started telling the crowd about the crisis center his church supports and the wonderful things* they do. I remembered Amanda Marcotte's
Alternet story on pregnancy crisis centers pushing religion on pregnant women. Which must have been why I heard myself say, "So are these the religious centers where they tell women things that
aren't true, like that abortion causes breast cancer?"
He allowed that he didn't know what my "personal experience" had been, and then another convention volunteer--another very nice older man--opined that it's just a way for women to know "they have a choice." Long-time readers well know how I feel about men, very nice or otherwise, attempting to interfere with women's reproductive sovereignty. I see it as the height of impudence. And then there are the policy issues.
Why on earth would Texas Democrats support public funding for anti-choice propaganda? A young woman stood up and cited chapter and verse of the state budget she works on at the Lege, describing how millions of public dollars have already been diverted from real health care for women to help fund these centers. We already have a health-care mess here. Why make it worse?
Another man, probably also very nice, asked if there was any way to verify her numbers. Oh, yes he did. He insinuated that she was lying. And good for her, she stood there with her voice shaking and she held her ground. Another woman jumped in and said that as a patient advocate, she couldn't agree with diverting funds from actual care for any reason. At that point, the vol running the vote seemed eager to get it over with. To my precinct's credit, it was voted down. But not by so much.
The next resolution started off with "whereas abortion is traumatic for a woman" and went downhill from there, covering a wish list of right-wing talking points like abstinence education and the desire to make abortion "rare," wrapping up with the golden and entirely inaccurate GOP catchphrase, "culture of life." At that point a lot of people had questions.
"Where did these resolutions come from?" I asked, incredulous.
"From the packet," shrugged one of the women volunteers, indicating the materials that came from the party.
The volunteer with the church program suggested that the resolutions may have come from the state level in an effort to get items into the platform that would encourage GOP voters to cross over. Which makes a certain amount of sense, but not in a good way.
I have since learned that anyone can submit a resolution, and that experience certainly proves it. It bothers me that there was no media attention given to that aspect of the conventions beforehand. It bothers me that these resolutions were anathema to Texas Democratic party in both spirit and letter. The
2006 platform includes such commonsense language as, "Texas Democrats [t]rust the women of Texas to make personal and responsible decisions about when and whether to bear children," and supports "using family planning funding for pregnancy prevention and preventive health care in regulated, licensed medical facilities, rather than biased and non-medical activities."
But what bothers me most is that the notion that women are still, even in putatively progressive circles, considered a means to a political end. If these resolutions were meant to "protect" women from their choices, that would be inappropriate and wrongheaded enough. But if the goal was to draw anti-choice voters by throwing women under the bus, that's wrong in a deep moral sense.
Maybe I should submit my own resolution at the county convention later this month: Whereas the decision to proceed with a pregnancy is ultimately the business of no one but the pregnant woman, be it resolved that the Texas Democratic party will stay the hell out of it.
*I looked it up. One of the wonderful things this particular center does is tell folks about the joys of sexual purity and "renewed virginity," while church members are urged to "pray that all of those receiving counsel will choose to keep their baby." How renewed virginity goes with labor and delivery is beyond me, but whatever. I just hope they're not getting state funds to push "crisis care" that includes Bible verses.
Neutron is finally getting around to dealing with these vegetables.
