By: Jay Janner
Amy O’Donnell, Director of Communications for Texas Alliance for Life, speaks at the Texas Medical Board meeting to discuss guidance around physicians for medical exceptions to the state’s abortion ban laws at the George H.W. Bush State Office Building Friday March 22, 2024.
By: John C. Moritz
Amy O’Donnell, a policy analyst and communications director for the Texas Alliance for Life, acknowledged that abortion rights activists have skillfully used the Cox case to bring the national spotlight to their cause.
Kate Cox, who sued for the right to have an abortion after learning that her fetus had a condition that is nearly always fatal, left the state to get an abortion. The state Supreme Court ruled against her.
While saying “our hearts go out to the Cox family,” O’Donnell said abortion rights organizations are using “a lot of misinformation” about whether a baby can survive trisomy 18.
“It’s incredibly important that we educate Texans and people in general, not just on the issue around trisomy 18, and the fact that that’s not always fatal, and that every life is valuable and worthy of protection,” O’Donnell said. “But also that our laws clearly allow doctors to intervene to save a woman’s life or to save her from the risk of impairment, substantial impairment of a major bodily function such as fertility.”
By: Bayliss Wagner
The courtroom was full for the hourlong hearing, attended by many of the plaintiffs in the case as well as their husbands and some family members. Several Texas Alliance for Life representatives also attended.
By: Bridget Grumet
Still, Attorney General Ken Paxton has asked the state’s highest court to overturn Mangrum’s ruling, arguing abortion restrictions should be decided by the Legislature (which, I should note, is 70% men), not the judiciary. He got a loud chorus of backup this week as 10 Texas senators and 80 Texas House members signed onto a brief drafted by an anti-abortion group, the Texas Alliance for Life Trust Fund.
By: Fernanda Figueroa
During the Texas Rally for Life — which was hosted by Texas Alliance for Life, a nonprofit focused on protecting the “right to life” from conception through death — demonstrators gathered to march through downtown Austin, ending at the Capitol in celebration of the court decision that struck down the 1973 ruling that had protected abortion rights nationwide.
More than 30 buses from across the state brought people to the annual rally, according to the organization.
By: Madlin Mekelburg
“If the court’s final ruling is similar to this, it will be the answer to almost 50 years of prayer and hope,” said Joe Pojman, executive director of the anti-abortion organization Texas Alliance for Life. “It will have completely returned the question of protecting unborn babies back to the states.”
Should the court strike down Roe v. Wade, Texas would be among 13 states to outlaw the procedure almost immediately, under a so-called trigger law set to go into effect 30 days after an opinion from the high court.
Under the law, it would be a felony to perform an abortion, except to save the life of a pregnant patient or if the patient risks “substantial impairment” of a major bodily function. There would be no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. Doctors who perform illegal abortions could face life in prison and fines of up to $100,000.