Further proof that putting fundies in charge only invites unnecessary harm and hardship.

doncha know?

I note, with some sardonic amusement, this part:

"Texas’ Department of Health said a task force is looking into the issue but has not come up with an explanation or solution."

OF COURSE they're not going to come up with an explanation or a solution. They're not gonna want to admit to getting this SO damn wrong, nor will they somehow become willing to stop persecuting Planned Parenthood.

SHEESH - the statistics are a whole freakin' lot more than "puzzling." Good Grief...

was soooooo surprised when they ended up with an HIV epidemic (and an associatec Hep C epidemic) among IV drug addicts.

His response to the epidemic caused by his stupidity was absurd: He okayed just a 30-day needle exchange program, limited to the single county identified as the epidemic's epicenter!

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/03/26/indiana-to-declare-health-emergency-for-hiv-outbreak/70478492/

Eventually he was forced to sign a more expansive (but still ridiculously limited) program when the epidemic spread, but counties had to prove they were already in trouble with the diseases spreading:

http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/05/pence-signs-bill-facilitate-needle-exchange-programs/26946043/

IOW, rather than prevent the epidemic of deadly diseases, they had to prove they were already swamped by new cases!

The HIV outbreak in one county in southern Indiana spawned the exchange program.

state had problems, Pence wouldn't okay a general program without conditions. The compromise that he finally signed required counties to prove they already had an epidemic before they would be allowed to implement a needle exchange program.

It would be even better if there were safe places for addicts to live where they could get safe drugs and the help they needed to quit the drugs they were addicted to. It also would be better for addicts who couldn't quit, for whatever reason.

Opiates are simply not as harmful as all the shit that goes along with any outlawed street drug.

Rush Limbaugh was imbibing enough clean pharmaceutical grade opiates to kill an elephant. Yet still he lives. Street drug junkies die.

The mortality rate is deaths per live birth. So an increase in pregnancies would not account for it.

On edit - if the women's health programs included those for prenatal care, then this would make sense.

Since women who should avoid getting pregnant may not have been able to get birth control, more would die. Also, lack of access to abortion for dangerous pregnancies - tubal pregnancies for instance - can cause death of the woman.

And very young women who had unplanned pregnancies, and don't seek prenatal care.

See, all these librul women just waited until Texas did something lethally stupid in regard to prenatal care and women's health. Dozens of them stayed pregnant for years just so they could die in childbirth and embarrass Gov. Abbott and the Republican-dominated Texas legislature. It's all so clear, sheeple! James O'Keefe has a sting in the works where he poses as a pregnant woman and dies while giving birth; that'll show everyone the Truth!

Those damn libruls are too damn smart for us Texass Rednecks.

it should be misogyny with a subset of extreme religious patriarchy.

These smug, godly jackasses won't be happy until all women are either penned up like cattle or dead. And yes, it is a sickness.

It's high time the rest of their sex recognize it for what it is.

n/t

It's what they do.

The honest unvarnished truth.

It happens to the best of us.

That's what they are.

Never ceases to amaze me.

“In the absence of war, natural disaster, or severe economic upheaval, the doubling of a mortality rate within a two year period in a state with almost 400,000 annual births seems unlikely,” researchers write.

I don't believe these evil asses are really religious at all. They are hypocrites to the extreme. They call themselves Christians, but do the opposite of what Jesus would do.

I hate this so much. Women and families suffering so much because of their phony grandstanding.

Why do Republicans hate reality?

God I hate that place.

Are they idiots???

Which is why the repukes don't want anyone to have it.

Who cares?

In fact, more abortions are done in many red states because of their weirdness about birth control. It's that these women don't vote on that issue - maybe if this story gets out there in a viral sense, they'll change their minds.