Oh, for the love of—

At least twice a week, I check the news, see something about Texas, bury my face in my arms and weep for the future of the United States.

Okay, that’s hyperbolic. But my roommate has become very accustomed to hearing me sigh, “Damn it, Texas,” and then resume clicking on the keyboard. Which should tell you something about the sorts of things for which Texas enters the national spotlight.

For example, Texas only just learned what the old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” means.

Only in this case it was more like “$73 million in funding for family planning services can keep your state from having to pay $273 million to support the thousands more unplanned pregnancies that happened as a result of not having good family planning services.”

To be fair, Texas is at least consistent with its baffling failures of logic. The reasoning legislators gave to justify their decision to defund and close more than 50 family planning clinics statewide was that clinics that provided family planning services might be affiliated with abortion clinics.

I’m not going to get into the ethical considerations of abortion. Suffice it to say that they are actually a very important part of family planning, particularly for women and families that can’t financially or emotionally support a child, healthy or otherwise.

By attacking family planning clinics in an attempt to limit access to abortions, however, legislators failed to consider the multitude of research indicating that access to birth control, comprehensive sex education and family planning services reduces abortion rates far more than trying to shut down abortion clinics ever does.

Then again, this is Texas. This is the legislative session that tried to outlaw the teaching of critical thinking skills in 2012, no doubt in an attempt to ensure the next generation of legislators is as incompetent as they are.

In case you were wondering, that particular legislative body (the 82nd Legislature) comprised 146 men and a mere 39 women. That’s almost four men for every woman. And despite how much men seem to love talking about and making laws governing women’s bodies, they rarely have an accurate idea of what family planning consists of, other than “insert sperm, make baby” and “no sperm, no baby.”

Abstinence is not effective family planning. Research has all but proven this.

Not that Texas cares about research. I used to wonder why they didn’t bother reading it, but then I remembered that they tried to outlaw critical thinking and allow academic degrees in creationism—because science is made up of theories.

Honestly, sometimes it’s too easy to make fun of Texas. I almost feel guilty.

Regardless, now they’re paying the price for their ignorance. Or, at the very least, taxpayers are. It’s (shockingly!) far more expensive to support 24,000 additional unplanned pregnancies and births than to provide women with services that can help prevent unplanned pregnancies.

So, the $73 million Texas “saved” actually cost them more than $250,000,000.

Thankfully, Texas’ current legislative session has recognized just how bad that number could get in the long run. There are now plans to use $100 million to fund women’s health clinics around the state so the problem doesn’t get any worse.

A good start, I guess, but unless Texas wants me to keep providing my roommate with a soundtrack of exasperation and utter disappointment on Sunday and Wednesday mornings, it’s going to have to try harder.

It’s time for legislators in Texas to use some of those critical thinking skills they’re so vehemently opposed to to consider the real source of their problems. It’s time for them to take part in preventing unplanned pregnancies early on by teaching comprehensive sex education—real science, not Judeo-Christian dogma.
Funding family planning. Recognizing that a woman’s body is her business, not something to be legislated. And recognizing there is so much more to family planning than simply “how do we get women to stop spreading their legs?”

I’m skeptical about whether Texas will be successful, but they might manage to do it…in a few decades. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if all those unplanned kids can make their voices heard—or, at least, if a $273 million loss is sufficient to get the government’s long-term attention.

Until then, say it with me:

Damn it, Texas.