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Here's The New Hashtag You Need to Follow

by Julia Black

It turns out there are some things that take a lot less than six weeks: making Rick Perry and Texas Republican state legislators look like idiots.

When Republican state representatives introduced HB-59 Thursday — a bill that would criminalize abortion after six weeks — Ms. Magazine teamed up with the the pro-choice community in Texas to devise a new social media stunt to draw attention to the insanity going down in their state. Enter the hashtag #ThingsThatTakeLongerThanSixWeeks, which has been trending on Twitter all day.

Most states allow abortions to be performed until the fetus reaches viability, which is typically at about 28 weeks. A handful of states ban abortions after 20 weeks. North Dakota is the only state in the country to limit the period to six weeks, and their law is currently being challenged in court. Oh, and we should mention that many women don't even realize they're pregnant until well after six weeks into the pregnancy. So, yeah, six weeks is pretty preposterous.

Here are some choice picks from the trending hashtag: