"Well, of course it's a war on birth control, on abortions, on everything—that's what family planning is supposed to be about."
That's former state Rep. Wayne Christian explaining the intentions behind the Texas Republican party's 2011 round of attacks on reproductive health, but it's a pretty good nutshell account of what's really going on in Texas right now, too. It's not much of a secret that the anti-abortion crowd is also the anti-birth control crowd, but most of the time they're not quite that blunt about it. Nor are they quite that blunt about the idea that family planning is, apparently, "supposed to be about" not having any way to plan your family other than not having sex even in marriage.
As Texas Republicans have fought to limit women's access to abortion, they've offered staggering ignorance, in the form of state Sen. Bob Deuell's contention that only "accurate intercourse" causes pregnancy and state Rep. Jodie Laubenberg's belief that rape kits are "where a woman can get cleaned out." They've offered mindboggling condescension, in the form of Gov. Rick Perry's insistence that "It is just unfortunate that [Wendy Davis] hasn’t learned from her own example." And they've been awash in hostility toward their opponents. So, so much hostility.
Not to say the ignorance, the condescension, or the hostility are in any way insincere, but here's where they all spring from: "of course it's a war on birth control, on abortions, on everything—that's what family planning is supposed to be about."