The State Affairs committee is meeting right now, discussing pharmacists who don't want to hand out birth control and more!

A pharmacist from Dallas is testifying now saying that she won't dole out the morning-after pill. She says she is willing to recommend a pharmacist who will to the customer, but she won't. She will hand out birth-control though. She talked it over with her priest.

She's Catholic, but she and her priest agree that birth control pills are okay. Hmmm.

"I am responsible for my actions." This justifies her choice to refer the customer to another pharmacist, she asserts.

Chair Swinford joked about Rep. Farrar's grilling of an earlier witness. Har har.

The woman testifying now is speaking for a pharmacist in Houston, for the bill. She says pharmacy schools need to teach their students that they should judge for themselves what will "do no harm".

Are there any people against the bill here?

Okay, this woman is. Thank God! She says women taking the pills for ovarian cysts wouldn't agree with this bill.

"Pharmacists are not doctors".

"The pharmacist has the right not to take this drug." Ooooh, she's making some awesome points.

Rep. Wong basically compares this birth control bill to abortion. Hello!! Not the same thing! She states, "Pharmacists have more knowledge of medication than do doctors."

"I'm country hayseed from the country," states the Chair.

Another woman testifies, this is early contraception, NOT ABORTION. And she's a churchgoing woman, too.

I go away for over an hour, and they're still talking about the bill. The committee members are arguing with themselves over pharmacists refusing to give birth control.

The chair suggested that Cort remove his bill if birth control pills will be affected. Or so I heard.

Cort wants to leave his bill pending, rather than withdraw it. HB16 is left pending.

On to parental consent! HB3305 has been withdrawn.

Rep. Villareal presents HB3392 after musing on what he thinks it means to be a parent. For girls seeking abortion, parental notification is changed to parental consent. It leaves an option for girls who have been abandoned or abused. He wants to include grandparents.

He just said "protection against abused girls". But that's not what I think he means.

Turn your cell phone off! Or at least on to silent.

Rep. Wong doesn't believe in notaries. As a notary, I'm offended! Okay, seriously now. She's having trouble with the idea of minors writing about why they don't live with their parents. "What does certified mean?"

Rep. Wong must not be a notary. Rep. Farrar interrupts the musing on notaries. Hooray! FYI: you can present an ID, be personally known, or present a social security card to have something notarized.

Now we're back to grandparents' rights.

They just joked about going until 9pm. Please, no! But given the amount of time spent on the pharmacist bill, this might go til the wee hours. Of course, I can't last that long.

I'm really interested in this topic, but this discussion is losing even me. I guess if there is going to be a sucky parental consent bill, Villareal's bill sounds like the least suckiest. We still don't care for any of these much at all.

"I commend you on your effort, I just want to understand," so said the Chair. I think. I'm starting to zone out. A little.

Blah blah judicial bypass. Rep. Gaddis is picking on Rep. Villareal because you know he prefers King's bill. King's bill that hasn't been presented to the committee yet. I'm all for these guys taking it outside and duking it out.

This is starting to really piss me off. But now Rep. Farrar and Rep. Villareal are joking about Wohglemuth, the author of the original parental notification bill.

Okay, I've had my fill. We here at Pinkdome hope that some good will come off all of this, but I think the best thing that happened this evening is that HB16 was left pending. It would be better if it was withdrawn completely. . . Bluebonnet out.