By: Texas Alliance for Life
“Governor Abbott is absolutely right — no changes to the medical necessity exception language in the law are needed,” said Amy O’Donnell, Communications Director for Texas Alliance for Life. “These numbers continue to prove that Texas’ pro-life laws are working as Governor Abbott and the Legislature intended, saving unborn lives while allowing doctors to provide medically necessary abortions when a woman’s life or health is at risk.”
By: Jef Rouner
O’Donnell is wrong about no lives being lost. At least three women have died since the abortion ban was put in place. The latest bled to death in a Houston hospital because her doctor would not risk an abortion procedure that the hospital feared ran afoul of Texas law. Doctors who break abortion laws in Texas face 99 years in prison.
By: By Emily Brindley and Nolan D. McCaskill
“It’s highly illegal in Texas,” said Joe Pojman, founder and executive director of Texas Alliance for Life. “It is the same offense as performing an illegal abortion in Texas.”
Legal experts have said the law isn’t so black-and-white, particularly because a number of other states have enacted shield laws that protect health care providers from other states’ abortion bans.
By: B.D. Hobbs
“To unfairly target pro-life advocates, while ignoring vandalism and violent acts against pregnancy centers in churches, and that’s not justice” said Amy O’Donnell, communications director at Texas Alliance for Life, “We’re very grateful to representative Chip Roy for seeking to protect peaceful pro-lifer’s from the weaponization of the FACE act so that they continue.”
It would be a long overdue, and welcomed change as 97% of FACE act prosecutions have been against pro-life advocates.
By: Daniel Perreault
“Just because you’re given a difficult diagnosis doesn’t mean that abortion is the only answer,” Cooper said.
Texas has some of the strictest abortion restrictions in the nation. Cooper, who works as a public policy analyst for Texas Alliance for Life, said she doesn’t want to see any expansion of the very narrow exceptions to the state’s near-total abortion ban.
“We don’t want our laws weakened to allow those children to be aborted,” Cooper said. “They deserve to be protected by law, and those mothers deserve to be supported.”
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who represents Texas, was slated to be the featured speaker with top billing at the rally, but couldn’t make it in person as the Senate has been working through the weekend to vote on President Donald Trump’s cabinet picks. Cornyn sent an audio message that organizers played at the rally. In it, he praised the abortion laws that are on the books in Texas.
“I can say without a doubt that Texas is the most pro-life state in the entire nation,” Cornyn said. “We have set an undeniable example of how to protect those who cannot protect themselves.”
In the early days of the 89th legislative session, there’s been a push among top Republican leaders to clarify when Texas doctors can perform abortions.
By: Emily Brindley
Joe Pojman, the founder and executive director of the Texas Alliance for Life, said his organization wants to focus on educating doctors and other health care workers about the abortion ban as it stands — without rewriting the law itself.
“We don’t think the law needs to be changed,” Pojman said.
Pojman pointed to the lack of guidance from medical groups, and faulted them for the ensuing confusion among medical providers. The Texas Medical Board did issue guidance in June, but did not list specific exceptions to the abortion ban.