By: Rylee Wilson

Joe Pojman, founder and executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, said that since the court’s July 1 ruling, his organization tracked have stopped performing abortions. The modern-day abortion ban Texas lawmakers passed last year, which allows the procedure only in life-threatening situations, officially goes into effect in August . Certain respondents have noted that this year’s heat feels much worse than last year’s, she said. Here’s a status update on which abortion clinics in North Texas have closed or remain open to provide other services. Whole Woman’s Health The organization, founded in Austin in 2002, announced after closing its four Texas clinics that it would raise funds to build a New Mexico facility for women from Texas seeking abortions . “I’m not necessarily surprised that it’s happening, but I’m definitely worried. “With the shuttering of our four Texas clinics, we do not have the financial reserves to open in New Mexico without community support,” Whole Woman’s Health CEO Amy Hagstrom Miller said. They received a personal greeting from Irving Mayor Rick Stopfer.

By: Rebekah Alvey

For abortion opponents, the implementation of the trigger ban and the overall success of other abortion bans in Texas signal a win.

“We are very happy that the Legislature has passed this law to protect unborn children from the tragedy of abortion, along with passing some other measures to help pregnant women with unplanned pregnancies,” said Joe Pojman, founder and executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, ahead of the judgment’s release.
He added that since the pre-Roe ban went into effect, all 23 Texas abortion clinics his organization tracked had ceased performing procedures. Meanwhile, he said 350 pregnancy centers, adoption agencies and maternity homes have continued operating throughout the state.

“In our view the Human Life Protection Act is the last stake in the heart of the abortion industry in Texas,” Pojman said.

By: Barbara Campos

La Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos oficializó el martes el fallo del caso Dobbs versus Organización para la Salud de la Mujer de Jackson, Mississippi, una demanda que buscaba prohibir el aborto tras las 15 semanas de gestación.

La formalización del dictamen dio luz verde a la implementación de la ley de activación automática de Texas el 25 de agosto. Cerca de la mitad de los estados del país promulgaron medidas similares.

“Este es un momento que apenas me atreví a soñar que sucedería en mi vida, pero aquí está”, dijo Joe Pojman, activista de la Alianza de Texas por la Vida.

En un mes, Texas castigará la practica con penas de hasta vida en prisión y multas de hasta $100,000. La ley SB-8 o del latido, también permite demandar a quien asista en la interrupción de un embarazo por hasta $10,000. La única excepción será si la vida de la madre está en peligro.

“La legislatura también asignó más de $100 millones para el altamente exitoso programa de alternativas al aborto a fin de brindar todos los servicios que una mujer necesita con un embarazo no planificado para llevar con éxito a ese bebé a término, dar a luz, conservar ese bebé o ponerlo en adopción”, dijo Pojman.

Por otra parte, la presidenta de Whole Woman’s Health, Amy Hagstrom Miller, envió un comunicado a la redacción de Telemundo Austin para declarar que la decisión del máximo tribunal era algo que esperaban, describiéndola como “el comienzo del fin de la atención legal del aborto en Texas”. La entidad operaba varias clínicas de salud reproductiva en Texas y se comprometió a seguir ayudando a las mujeres a obtener el servicio donde siga siendo legal.

“Cualquier mujer que busque un aborto en otro estado, esas situaciones rompen nuestros corazones porque eso significa que no está familiarizada con los vastos recursos disponibles en Texas y aquí mismo en Austin”, dijo Pojman.

By: Tiffany Huertas & Adam Barraza

A spokesperson for the Texas Alliance for Life, a pro-life organization, released this statement:

“We celebrate the long-anticipated overturning of Roe v. Wade and the greater number of lives now being saved in states across our nation and in the great state of Texas.

We applaud the measures our pro-life Governor, Lt Governor, Speaker, and legislators have taken to take care of both women and their unborn children, including increased funding for the state’s highly successful Alternatives to Abortion program, the provision of the Healthy Texas Women Program to provide for the healthcare needs of women, and the increase of Medicaid coverage for up to six months after birth for moms and 12 months for their babies.

We also applaud the Legislature for passing and Governor Abbott for signing HB 1280, the Human Life Protection Act, to completely protect unborn babies from abortion beginning at conception. That law will go into effect 30 days after the Supreme Court issues its judgment in the Dobbs case, expected any day.

We will continue to work to protect innocent human life, get pro-life candidates elected, educate women about the vast resources available to them, and partner with pro-life organizations to advance a culture of life across Texas.”

By: Stephen Paulsen

Ashley Leenerts, a legislative associate for Texas Right to Life, said the council was promoting “the false narrative that women can’t succeed with the option of abortion.” She urged members to “focus on making Austin a life-affirming city.” Amy O’Donnell, a communications director for Texas Alliance for Life, said that coping with an unplanned pregnancy in college was “one of the hardest things I’ve ever done” and that she had cried for several days after learning she was pregnant. Still, she said it was a “lie” that “women have to kill our babies to achieve great things in life.”

By: Samiha Shafy and Amrai Coen

If Joe Pojman had his way, Christina Bourne would soon no longer be a doctor but a convicted felon. He receives in his office in Austin, Texas, 900 kilometers from the clinic in Wichita. Pojman is 63 years old, wearing a suit and tie, a man with gray hair and a full beard who chooses his words carefully and speaks eloquently. His demeanor is so gentle that at first you hardly notice how radical his statements are. He used to work as an engineer for NASA. Until he felt called by God to devote his life to something else. Pojman founded the Texas Alliance for Life organization 34 years ago.

Joe Pojman has the same goal as Mark Gietzen, the man praying outside the Kansas clinic, but Pojman’s strategy is more subtle — and far more efficient. On the table in front of him is a law that he drafted. The governor of Texas has already signed it. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade, that law will go into effect 30 days later in Texas. It bears the number 1280 and the name “Human Life Protection Act”. The text reads: “A person who violates the ABORTION BAN commits a crime.” A doctor like Christina Bourne would then be charged with manslaughter in Texas after an abortion and sentenced to life imprisonment. She would have to pay a fine “of not less than $100,000 for each violation.”

Aren’t there any exceptions? “Yes,” says Joe Pojman. “When the mother’s survival is threatened by the pregnancy.” What about rape or incest? Or if the child is not viable? “No.”

In Texas, people already live in a world where Roe vs. Wade is all but abolished. Last September, when abortion was legalized in neighboring Mexico, the so-called heartbeat law went into effect in Texas. It bans abortions from the time a fetus’s heartbeat can be detected – around the sixth week of pregnancy. Many women don’t even realize they’re pregnant that early.

Joe Pojman doesn’t take the heartbeat law far enough. “Life begins at conception,” he says. Unlike the chief physician Christina Bourne, he never talks about the “fetus”, he says “the unborn child”. The choice of term shows that there are complex questions behind the abortion debate: When does life begin? At what point does a fetus become a person?

Pojman engages in a brief thought experiment: Suppose he’s in a burning hospital and can save five embryos in Petri dishes on the way out – or a newborn baby. What would he choose?

Joe Pojman says he can’t answer that question. “For me, human life is always equally valuable – whether it’s an unborn child, a newborn, a teenager or an adult.” He’s heard about women leaving Texas to have abortions elsewhere. “It breaks my heart,” he says. “My goal is that no woman sets out.”

But women in Texas are not yet prohibited by law from seeking help outside of the state. For example in Mexico.