Travis County Abortion Discrepancy
POSTED by: on 12/10/2009
One Baby
Tonight the 9 members of the board of managers of the Travis County Healthcare District (TCHD) met in a special meeting to deliberate over a proposed contract with three local abortion providers.
The agreement would use $450,000 in Travis County property taxes to pay for approximately 1,000 abortions in 2010.
Several friends and I were in attendance of the meeting as the board voted 9-0 in favor of the abortion contracts.
After the vote the attendance numbers of the meeting were read aloud to be entered into the public register. However, there was an error which is recorded below.
The meeting reported in attendance:
- 178 total citizens
- 49 signed up to speak in opposition
- 35 signed up to speak in support
- 59 signed in opposition but declined to speak
- 43 signed in support but declined to speak
One Question
While sitting in the room I quickly added the numbers and found the following mistake: 49 + 35 + 59 + 43 = 186
Did anyone catch that?
186 ≠ 178
So who was counted twice? Or should I ask, who wasn’t? Or who was really there? Are any of these numbers accurate?
Seriously, this is supposed to be “official”. The secretaries are paid money (the board is volunteer), this is their job, shouldn’t they be able to at least get fundamental addition correct?
What about the public record? Isn’t that supposed to be… you know… correct?
One Problem
Comments
Tweets that mention Travis County Abortion Discrepancy | Imagivation -- Topsy.com
December 11th, 2009
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Thomas Umstattd Jr., Imagivation. Imagivation said: Abortion post on imagivation: http://imagivation.org/2009/12/10/travis-county-abortion-discrepancy/ [...]
Thomas
December 11th, 2009
Sigh…
Nathan Malone
December 11th, 2009
Did you end up speaking, Paul? I listened in from 6:20 till the end, but didn’t hear you.
One more reason to move to Williamson County.
Alex B,
December 11th, 2009
Agrees with Thomas. Sigh…….
Brian
December 12th, 2009
This is really sad. What’s interesting is that the Austin American Statesman (apparently without the official numbers) wrote that:
“About 200 people, most against the contracts, showed up for the public hearing.”
http://www.statesman.com/services/content/news/stories/local/2009/12/11/1211abortion.html
So, it seems that everyone agreed that more pro-life people showed up, but the record somehow finagled the numbers so it appears to be the exact opposite. THATS. JUST. WRONG.
> Brian
Tax Funded Abortions in Austin | Thomas Umstattd Jr.
December 12th, 2009
[...] speak and pray for life. Of the 18 of us who registered to speak only Minda got the chance. Of the 49 who registered to speak they council only let 12 [...]
NathanE
December 12th, 2009
God is not finished yet. They can twist the info, and mess up the numbers, but The Lord got a plan for this. Besides, this is not the end, we can fight this again next year, and the year after that, etc. do not be discouraged. we are not here to be discouraged, we have the light, and the darkness has not understood it. we have a hope and a reason to fight, lets do it with praise because of the hope that we have.
NathanE
December 12th, 2009
By the way Paul, when were we planning on getting those speeches taped?
Ben
December 14th, 2009
Good point Paul, if they can’t get the fundamental addition of the total amount of people present, then how are we to trust that the rest of those numbers are correct?
PaulH
December 14th, 2009
Only 12 speakers from both sides were able to speak. I think a friend of Thomas’ was able to speak but the rest of the ARCers were further down the line. Cynthia was the closest (somewhere around #18?) and I was toward the end with #37.
I need to talk with Thomas about the recordings first but we’ll let yall know when it’s time.