A federal judge struck down Rick W. Perry's anti-abortion legislation today which would have required women to view a sonogram and listen to heartbeats before they would be permitted to obtain an abortion in the state of Texas.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - A federal judge temporarily blocked key provisions of a Texas abortion law on Tuesday that would require women seeking the procedure to view a sonogram and listen to the heartbeat of their fetus.
The law, which had been due to go into effect on Thursday, was a major part of Republican Governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry's agenda in this year's Texas legislative session.
But the judge, in a victory for abortion rights activists, ruled in a preliminary injunction that there was cause to believe such a requirement was an unconstitutional burden on doctors.
Wait, what? Rick Perry signed something into law which may be unconstitutional? Rick Perry loves the constitution though, doesn't he? Doesn't he sleep with a copy of it under his pillow? Isn't the constitution his favorite thing to read in the bathroom alongside the funny papers?
Perhaps I was mistaken.
Keep in mind that Rick Perry infamously referred to his anti-abortion legislation as an "emergency priority," trumping all other pending legislation.
Meanwhile, another federal judge ruled against the state of Kansas for stripping funds from Planned Parenthood and ruled that funding must be restored immediately.
A federal judge ordered that funding for Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri be restored immediately, after a new state law stripped it of funding for non-abortion activities.
A provision in the Kansas budget prioritized family planning funding for clinics that did not perform abortions over those clinics that did, meaning that the region's Planned Parenthood clinics would go un-funded for the majority of their services. The group would lose an estimated $330,000 in funding per year under the new regulation. [...]
U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten ruled Tuesday evening that the state would have to continue funding Planned Parenthood and that they would do so on the previous quarterly schedule. Without the funding, Planned Parenthood said that their clinics in Hays and Wichita would be unable to provide services beyond this week.
Today is a good day for those who are pro-choice and, ironically, those who are for limited government, as there is nothing limited about uterus legislation.
The ruling in favor of Planned Parenthood in Kansas has much larger implications, but we all know abortion is the Right Wing's central grievance.