Warren Chisum

from Talk to Action

Just over a year ago, a group of veteran spiritual warriors for the religious right — including men who began their careers in the most radical fringes of the anti-abortion movement — sneaked into a Senate hearing room to "consecrate" the chamber with holy oil.

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wondered about the legality of this holy trespass.

Do not be surprised if, at some point during next week's confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, a trumpet blast is sounded in the hearing room, winged angels descend, and Democrats on the Judiciary Committee turn into pillars of salt.

This undoubtedly would be the wish of the Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council. He held a news conference outside the Hart Office Building yesterday to announce that he would "consecrate Room 216 Hart" -- the hearing room -- in hopes of having, in the sacred words of Fox News, "a fair and balanced hearing."

"By dedicating it to God, we look to God to orchestrate and direct the activities that take place at that location," Schenck ... explained to the television cameras. It's unclear if this would violate Senate rules, which give Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) sole authority to direct activities in the hearing room.

Rep. David Swinford, who nominally rules the Texas House State Affairs Committee, now has had that authority usurped by the religious right as well. According to at least one Catholic anti-choice activist, the hearing room of Swinford's committee was given a clandestine inoculation against demonic pro-choice influences before its April 2 hearing on abortion-related bills.

Texas State Representative Warren Chisum made national news in February by endorsing the idea that teaching the theory of evolution in public schools is unlawful: Copernicus got it all wrong, and the rumor that the Earth rotates around the Sun is only a Kabbalistic plot. His hasty assertion that it was all a misunderstanding is belied by his effort to force Texas high schools to teach a Bible curriculum full of misrepresentations and outright lies.

Chisum's stunning ignorance of science and American history is surpassed by his bland disregard for the lethal nature of another of his current initatives. Should Roe v. Wade be overturned, Chisum's HB 175 would make abortion a crime. Illegal abortion currently kills at least 68,000 women each year — somewhere in the world, another woman dies in the time it takes to read this story — but for Warren Chisum, that's not worth worrying about.

Martin Luther showed no concern about pregnancy's horrific death toll among women of the 16th Century: "If they become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth, that's why they are there." And in some quarters, religious opinion on that subject hasn't changed much in the intervening 500 years. According to Warren Chisum, it's expected that women die from illegal abortion: "I'm not sure that doesn't happen even today. I suspect women try things on their own."

Yes, he really said that. I heard him.

from Talk to Action

On April 2, both House and Senate committees of the Texas Legislature will begin considering a number of bills affecting a woman's medical privacy, her control over her own bodily integrity and other aspects of reproductive rights. As always, the position taken by the medical community differs dramatically from that of organizations and politicians serving the Christian right. In fact, it's often hard to tell that they're even talking about the same legislation.

While the practice of medicine has undergone fundamental changes during the last 500 years, the religious doctrines inspiring and promoting anti-woman legislation currently pending in the Texas House and Senate have not.

Texas physicians who dwell in 21st century reality are coming forward to defend a woman's right to reproductive health care. But since many Texas lawmakers and their supporters on the religious right still seem to inhabit a world of fantasy, those doctors are going to need all the support they can muster.