By: Kevin Daley
Texas’s experience suggests that overturning Roe v. Wade will not prove to be a seismic political event, at least as far as election outcomes are concerned. The muted reaction to the Texas Heartbeat Act, the beginning of the end of abortion in Texas, only emboldened pro-life elements across the state.
“The sun rose as usual. Life went on. And there was not a tsunami of opposition to that law,” said Joe Pojman, Ph.D., an aerospace engineer who now leads the Texas Alliance for Life.
Pojman told the Washington Free Beacon that his group viewed the Heartbeat Act’s enactment as a “dress rehearsal” for the possibility that Roe would be overturned, which came to pass in June. The ensuing weeks gave them a chance to fine-tune talking points and assess reaction from coalition partners.
The following months were all the more encouraging, Pojman told the Free Beacon. The alliance endorsed dozens of candidates in Republican primaries across the state, he said, and he did not detect any reticence or hesitancy from Republican lawmakers, an assessment shared by other Texas Republicans the Free Beacon interviewed.
“People running for office all up and down the ballot cannot be pro-life enough in the Republican primary,”
Pojman told the Free Beacon. “Our PAC interviewed dozens of candidates for Congress, the state house, and statewide elected office. It’s amazing. Virtually everyone is more pro-life than Mother Teresa.”