A Perry Presidency

        Rachel Farris is currently a writer for The Huffington Post who has spoken about social media and communications at UT, LBJ School of Public Affairs, and St. Edward’s University. On August 17 Rachel Farris posted a blog, “What a Rick Perry Presidency Would Look Like for Women”, on her website in which she argues that if Rick Perry were to become President it would result in the restriction of people’s rights, more specifically women’s rights. After reading the title of Farris’s post it appears that her intended audience is women, after reading her entire post it becomes clear as water that women are her intended audience as she repeatedly references laws that directly affect women or their children.

         Farris jokes that Perry’s first order of business would be to create a department that would oversee “approved contraceptive devices under Perry’s watchful eye”, among the top being abstinence. Farris brings up an unnamed 2005 study that found teens in Texas were actually having more sex after undergoing an abstinence program. She goes on to say that even with this study Rick Perry currently stands by the practice not because he has any studies backing him up but because according to an interview with the Texas Tribune, “from my own personal life.” Rachel Farris then brings up a piece of legislation Perry declared an emergency legislation under which Texas’s law requires mandatory transvaginal sonograms for women who are eight to ten weeks pregnant and seeking abortions. She then goes on to joke that “President” Perry’s version of the bill would include an amendment to play Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” during the procedure. Farris wraps her post up by criticizing how Rick Perry is trying to protect unborn children yet Texas leads the nation in the percentage of children without health insurance.

        I found Rachel Farris’s post to be entertaining yet at the same time a bit disturbing. She criticizes Rick Perry by mocking him yet she provides hard evidence in the form of quotes from Perry and articles about legislations supported by him. I would certainly recommend this article to anyone as it provides entertainment while bringing up some interesting points as well.