Some decent folks live in Texas but...

its reputation as an extreme right-wing, christian fundamentalist, patriarchal, xenophobic, misogynist, homophobic, violent hell-hole is mostly well-deserved.

When Louise (of _Thelma and Louise_) wanted to make a run for Mexico, she wanted to avoid Texas.  Except for the enlightened city of Austin and environs, that is the correct approach to this reactionary US state.

DJ! has many, many blogposts about the Texan political climate and its dominant anti-Choice practices.

This judgement was recently pronounced there:

On Christmas Eve 2009, Ezekiel Gilbert, 30, shot Lenora Ivie Frago, 23, in the neck. She was paralyzed; seven months later, she died due to complications from that injury. On June 6, 2013, Gilbert was acquitted of that crime. He was acquitted because he claims she accepted $150 for escort services but did not have sex with him, which means that he was just defending his property. This acquittal shows the dangerous use to which such common "self-defense" laws can be put.[...]

Gilbert claimed he believed that sex was included in the $150 fee he paid to Frago as an escort; thus, when Frago did not have sex with him, he considered her a thief. Gilbert was probably also concerned about his inability to recover the money, as it would have required admitting to attempting to solicit a prostitute. As such, his attorneys successfully argued, the Texas law permitted the murder.

Criminal prosecutors Matt Lovell and Jessica Schulze, on the other hand, disagreed. Even with the Texas law, they argued that Gilbert's behavior was not protected. The law, they said, only protects "law-abiding" citizens; it does not protect those attempting to force the commission of an illegal act, such as prostitution, as would have been required of Frago.

Obviously, prostitution is illegal in the majority of the United States, which means that these people — if Frago was a prostitute, as is claimed – were already committing a crime. Also, admittedly, punishing Gilbert will not bring back this poor young woman. However, those facts to not obviate the problems with a law that justifies murder by the supposed theft of $150.

There you have it. This is even more callous than "Stand Your Ground" laws, which, as Florida recently demonstrated, works exclusively for men and people of pallor.

Grand merci to @godelnoodle and @godammitkitty for the link.

The basis for "Honour Killing" ...

has the exact same origin as the blathering of antichoice concern trolls.

Yesterday on Twitter I had to smack down "lettingsmokeout" who spouted pseudo high-minded crap about *Western civilization* defending human rights; eventually his tweets devolved to the point where it was apparent that the only right he defended was that of men controlling women's fertility and their capacity to breed.

There's "tedgurk" who seized upon the idea of appropriating one sentence from Madame Justice Bertha Wilson's complex judgement and cross-dressing it up as an excuse for Wankworth's M312.

The creepiness of male antichoice trolls - whether they slip themselves into the skin of a powerful woman to put their dicks words in her mouth or to flog the disingenous CON Attack Parrot©™ re-framing of issues to fit their fundamentalist religious ken - is boundless.

They manipulate the realities of women violated in many, many, many ways by patriarchy. They chose to ignore the pervasive social, political and religious forces that pressure women to behave in the ways that serve the needs of the men in their families, their husbands and their communities. Those who try to disobey their cultures' misogynist dictates are mutilated or killed.

So this CONvenient shrieeeking about the termination of pregnancies within specific ethnic communities, and using loaded words "missing women", "exterminated" and "snuffed out" is surely not happenstance.

Just imagine if these rightwing apologists for their own cultures' gynophobia were as MASSIVELY outraged over the thousands of Aboriginal "missing women" and girls, "exterminated" and "snuffed out" by the likes of Robert Pickton and his brethren of christofascist gynophobes. And directed their fury towards the cops who deliberately screwed up the original investigations with their racist, sexist behaviour.

Meanwhile, this.

Men who kill female family members tend to be treated more leniently by the courts if they are white, rather than non-white males perceived to have committed a so-called honour killing, a study suggests.

University of Ottawa law professor Pascale Fournier and two researchers analyzed 54 cases where men were convicted of killing their wives or close female family members.At trial, the men all argued the killings had been committed in the heat of passion after they were provoked and lost control.

Under the Criminal Code, this "defence of provocation" can reduce a murder charge to one of manslaughter.Fournier said that when the men in the study were divided according to ethnicity, the courts differed in how often the defence of provocation was accepted. "It was more likely that it would be accepted by judges, by the courts, when the individual was a Western white male," she said.

Chris Little didn't use that "defence of provocation" since he claimed that his estranged ex-wife had been killed by someone else. Fortunately a jury rejected his preposterous fabrication.

And then, there's Richard Wills, another entitled, privileged, pallid "honour killer".

It's only fitting the Maurice Vellacott Award be bestowed upon those who defend Motion 312 by piously proclaiming that feminists are murdering female and gay "preborn children".

This is what TheoCon maternal healthcare looks like

This is what Motherhood Steve wants to offer poor women in the developing world. From Nicaragua* again.

Nicaraguan authorities have withheld life-saving treatment from a pregnant cancer patient because it could harm the foetus and violate a total ban on abortion.

A state-run hospital has monitored the cancer spreading in the body of the 27-year-old named only as Amalia since her admission on February 12 but has not offered chemotherapy, radiotherapy or a therapeutic abortion, citing the law.

The decision has ignited furious protests from relatives and campaigners who say the woman, who has a 10-year-old daughter and is 10 weeks pregnant, will die unless treated. The cancer is suspected to have spread to her brain, lungs and breasts. They have petitioned the courts, government and the pan-regional Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to intervene.

The case has revived controversy over the 2007 law which made Nicaragua one of the few countries to prohibit abortion under any circumstances. Girls and women who seek an abortion, and health professionals who provide health services associated with abortion, face jail.

No exceptions. None. Not rape, not incest. Certainly not the health or life of the woman. Even women carrying fetuses with no brains and zero hope of life must carry them to term.

Amalia is being monitored at a hospital in Leon, the second-largest city in the impoverished central American country. The hospital director, Ricardo Cuadra, said the case had been referred to a government-run medical commission which is due to issue a recommendation next Monday.

The doctors won't treat her because they're scared. Imagine being one of the doctors or nurses 'monitoring' Amalia.

The government said it would make an announcement after the medical commission reported. "We will comment on this case in due time," said the health minister, Guillermo Gonzalez.

And then the spin:

In apparent reference to the authorities' frequent clashes with non-governmental organisations, he added: "Unfortunately, it seems that there are political interests behind this."

Spin taken up by a Catlick organ.

In an attempt to pressure officials in Nicaragua to legalize abortion, feminist groups are drawing attention to the dramatic case of a pregnant woman suffering from cancer, arguing that the only chance of survival for “Amelia,” the fictitious name given to the woman, is to undergo an abortion.

Um. No, not in anything I've read. Amalia's family and supporters want her cancer treated.

Typical fetus fetishist fantasy. Elsewhere in the article, there is the claim that Amalia is being 'sequestered' by the evil abortion-loving feminazis.

Last summer, DJ! blogged on a scathing report from Amnesty International.

According to official figures, 33 girls and women have died in pregnancy this year as compared to 20 in the same period last year. Amnesty International believes these figures are only a minimum as the government itself has acknowledged that the number of maternal deaths is under-recorded.

And ferlardsake, it's not just the preventable deaths of these women, but the bloody suffering they go through. And their families. And their soon-to-be-orphaned children.

Yet this is the kind of no-family-planning, no-contraception, no-abortion, misogynist healthcare Steve is promoting.

It's unconscionable.

* For more information on the dastardly wheeling and dealing, including Daniel Ortega's embrace of Catholicism, at least in part to evade charges of 'systematic sexual abuse' of his step-daughter, check out this old blogpost I wrote at Birth Pangs.