Or, there could be if Senator Lucio has his way.
During a recent special session in our Sovereign State of Texas, which those of us down here know if the rest of you don't determines God's will for the world, one of our Democratic Senators upped the ante in Jesus' campaign to save the unborn by proposing a bill to require adoption training before granting abortions.
For pro-choice advocates, Lucio's new requirements would make getting an abortion even more cumbersome than that last sentence. The proposal is even more alarming having come from a Democrat, the only Democrat who voted for the onerous Republican plan that was railroaded through the legislature after two special sessions. The good news is, it has no chance of being passed.
I don't think it's all that bad an idea, however. It just needs some tweaking. Some Jesus tweaking. You see the Lucio's idea is still about forcing women to do things whether they want to or not, and forcing people was never Jesus' way, something pro-lifers never seem to get.
In my version of Lucio's bill, instead of forcing women who want an abortion to take an adoption seminar, I say we force legislators who force women to give birth to find adopters for those babies. And that means they have to sit through training on how to find suitable parents, how to train those parents to be responsible financially and how to plan for their adopted children's education, how to monitor those families unobtrusively to make sure the children are being cared for and loved.
This law will have to include an amendment that mandates Episcopalians can be loving Christian families too and that Jewish, Buddhist, agnostic and atheist mothers can have their children placed in homes of their faiths. Yes, I am a Christian, but Jesus would have been deeply offended had his disciples forced their children or spouses to follow him.
Of course, we don't want to raise taxes, so the law would have to mandate that legislators who stop women from having abortions pay for this out of their own pockets. But, hey, if it's important enough, you can make room for it in your budget.
So hats off to you, Senator Lucio. Jesus salutes you and I salute you. You had the right idea, you just needed to refine it a little. Remember who needs the real education. And while you're at it, you might be thinking about how to find adopters for those little babies yourself since you helped cut back access to care.
And help find more doctors for women and their children as well since their becoming fewer and further between in Texas. Unless you plan to pay for their health care out of your own pocket.
Or you plan to heal them all with your prayers.