How Republicans air their dirty laundry — they try not to

As one might expect, maternal deaths associated with loss of abortion rights are going to increase. From the Republican theocrat point of view, that is an inconvenient fact or truth. So, what is a self-righteous Christian theocrat to do? Obviously, hide the truth from the public as best that can be done. Better yet, make sure there is no empirical basis to assert that forced birth laws kill some women -- do not collect data on maternal deaths caused by forced births and/or lie about why you are hiding the data. The Houston Chronicle writes:

Texas health officials have missed a key window to complete the state’s first major updated count of pregnancy related deaths in nearly a decade, saying the findings will now be released next summer, most likely after the Legislature’s biennial session.

The delay, disclosed earlier this month by the Department of State Health Services, means lawmakers won’t likely be able to use the analysis, covering deaths from 2019, until the 2025 legislative cycle. The most recent state-level data available is nine years old.

In a hearing this month with the state’s Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee, DSHS commissioner Dr. John Hellerstedt said the agency wanted to better align its methodology with that of other states, and that there hadn’t been enough staff and money to finish the review for a scheduled Sept. 1 release.

“The information we provide is not easily understood, and not easily and readily comparable to what goes on in other states,” Hellerstedt told the committee. “And the fact it isn’t easily understood or easily comparable in my mind leaves room for a great deal of misunderstanding about what the data really means.”

There you have it. “The information we provide is not easily understood, ....” What an insulting lie. It’s an in-your-face whopper. Another Houston Chronicle article from July 2022 was entitled: Risk of serious pregnancy complications has doubled since Texas abortion bans, study finds. We all know what is happening. Forced birth laws are injuring and killing women and Texas Republican politicians do not want Texans and the rest of the world to know about it.

I recall one of the things that got me to distrust and dislike Ronald Reagan shortly after he was sworn into office. He started shutting down collection of inconvenient data by the federal government. Without inconvenient and embarrassing data, the GOP would not have to lie to the American people about inconvenient facts and truths and their inconvenient logical implications. 

Republican ideologues, i.e., essentially all Republican Party elites, donors and the GOP propaganda leviathan, e.g., Faux News, hate facts and truths that contradict their dogmas, lies and stated political agendas, e.g., turning America into a bigoted, kleptocratic theocracy dominated by Christian Sharia law.

As time passes, it is a good bet that in places (federal government, states, cities, counties, local PTAs, etc.) where Republicans have political control, they will shut down, hide and/or deny as much inconvenient data collecting as possible. In a year or two, it is reasonable to expect that Texas will simply stop collecting forced birth injury and death data because it undercuts their dogmas, lies and theocratic Christian Sharia agenda.

Germaine’s political rules of thumb: It is much easier to deny inconvenient facts and truth when there is no data to assert what reality is. Therefore, morally rotted autocrats, ideologues, forced birthers, fundamentalist Christian nationalists and kleptocrats all work hard to not collect inconvenient data. But when it pops up despite their efforts to hide it, they enthusiastically deny, distort and otherwise lie, spin and/or apply crackpot motivated reasoning to downplay it. Republicans are especially expert at, and enthusiastic about, this political deceit tactic.