By: Hannah Tiede

Anti-abortion advocates say the money should have gone to pregnancy care centers.

“We are tremendously disappointed, but not surprised,” said Amy O’Donnell with Texas Alliance for Life. “What is important to note is that another law was passed, I believe two sessions ago, bans contracts between cities or municipalities and abortion providers and their affiliates. Now, there is somewhat of a loophole there that some of the side logistics funding organizations fall under. We are working to close that loophole because that will address some of what we are seeing with these city budget attempts to fund abortion travel.”

Mayor Ron Nirenberg told KENS 5 the city is complying with state and federal law.

By: David Montgomery

Joe Pojman, founder and executive director of the Texas Alliance for Life, one of the state’s leading anti-abortion rights groups, also defended the medical exception. “The law is already clear,” he said. “Judges are supposed to interpret the law, not rewrite the law.”

The suit names the state of Texas, the Texas Medical Board and Board Executive Director Stephen Brint Carlton as defendants. Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, is also a defendant, though he is currently suspended pending a state Senate trial on impeachment charges alleging bribery and other wrongdoing.

Lawyers for the attorney general’s office, who could not be reached for comment, are asking the court to dismiss the suit. In a rebuttal petition, they accuse the plaintiffs of staging “splashy news conferences and media tours” to get a favorable court ruling “after failing to convince the Legislature to adopt their preferred version of the medical exception.”

A proposed court order by the plaintiffs asks the court to give physicians discretion to use “good faith judgment” in providing abortion care to someone withunsafe pregnancy complications or instances in which a fetus is unlikely to survive the pregnancy or live after birth.

By: Noah DeGarmo

Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, told The Dallas Express his anti-abortion organization “favored those exceptions in law because we want to make sure that doctors can treat a woman whose pregnancy is endangering her life.”

He described HB 3058 as “an attempt to clarify” those exceptions.

“I’m grateful that the governor [and] the legislature [are] taking particular care to try and clarify what’s already in law,” said Pojman. “But I point out, it’s already in law, and doctors were already immune from prosecution or civil liability.”

By: Mary Tuma

In fact, a handful of Texas Republicans recently stood with one of the largest anti-abortion groups in the state to reaffirm that they would not be pursuing these exceptions. “Our laws are very clear,” said Amy O’Donnell of Texas Alliance for Life. “We have heard stories of doctors who say they need further clarification but we believe that that clarification should come…from various [hospital] boards. The laws do not need to be changed.”

By: Micaiah Bilger

The proposed ordinance, Proposition A, came from pro-abortion groups and basically would have legalized the killing of unborn babies in abortions in San Antonio.

However, the ballot measure failed by a huge margin Saturday with 72 percent of voters opposed, according to the Texas Tribune.

Amy O’Donnell, communications director at Texas Alliance for Life, celebrated the victory after her organization spent months working to defeat the proposal.

“We are tremendously pleased to see that San Antonio voters have defeated Prop A so decisively,” O’Donnell said. “Prop A would have been tragic for unborn children and victims of trafficking who would have been left without the protection from abortion they deserve by San Antonio police.”