In Texas, Life Goes On After Abortion | Washington Free Beacon

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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.”

IVF treatment can continue under Texas’ current abortion law, experts say | Texas Tribune

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By: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/13/texas-ivf-treatments/?fbclid=IwAR3Wqzr_KDJalB210sBJZayqmjVx4s4LniV2uqCg4EMFMONv_0cWDxk2AUQ

Two of Texas’ most well-known anti-abortion groups — Texas Alliance for Life and Texas Right to Life — also say the state’s laws and more recent definition of abortion should not affect or inhibit IVF treatment, even if they include the term embryo.

“Abortion is, according to Texas law, causing the death of the child, who is a child of a woman known to be pregnant,” John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, said pointing to a statute the Legislature amended a few years ago outlining what counts as an abortion.

“There’s also no such thing as an abortion outside of a woman’s womb, so when you look at what’s happening in the laboratory with assisted reproductive technology, that is not destruction of an embryo,” he added.

This language likely leaves IVF treatment intact, legal scholars told the Tribune. A district attorney could decide to try to test the issue by bringing a case against a fertility doctor, said Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston. But he added that challenging IVF doesn’t appear to be an area “ripe” for action in the anti-abortion movement.

Seago said Texas Right to Life has concerns about the “destruction” of “excessive” embryos, particularly in medical research, but the issue is not one of its priorities for Texas’ 2023 legislative session. Instead, its priorities include enforcing existing laws against abortion and providing more support for pregnant women.

Amy O’Donnell, a spokesperson for the Texas Alliance for Life, said the group had not finalized its legislative priorities yet, but said the group supported a law passed in 2017 requiring the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to post information on its website about embryo donations to other people to promote the option.

Texas abortion providers sue to block state’s pre-Roe ban | Spectrum News

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By: REENA DIAMANTE

It has not been used for nearly a half-century, but some abortion opponents believe it is fair game after Roe’s reversal.

“They have ceased doing abortions because of the threat of prosecution under that pre-Roe law,” Joe Pojman, executive director for Texas Alliance for Life, said. “I’m very grateful that for right now, it appears that unborn babies are not being aborted. Hopefully, those women are being told about the alternatives, the vast resources available to them if they choose to give birth to the child.”

With little short-term hope, Texas’ abortion-rights movement sets its sights on the long run | Texas Tribune

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By: WILLIAM MELHADO

On the other side, those celebrating the end of abortion in Texas also believe Friday’s ruling will rally voters to continue supporting the anti-abortion cause.

“I believe that our pro-life voters will feel empowered to continue voting,” Amy O’Donnell, a spokesperson for Texas Alliance for Life, told the Tribune. While she hesitates to make political predictions, O’Donnell says she anticipates the decision will spur voters to “come out in droves” in November.

O’Donnell attributes the success of anti-abortion advocates to “playing the long game for 49 years, advocating for life on a national basis, on a statewide basis. … We’ll continue to do that.”

Now, abortion-rights advocates say they need to follow that model.

After SCOTUS abortion decision, advocates look toward next chapter | Statehouse

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By: Ali Linan

For Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, the decision could not come soon enough.

“We are ecstatic,” he said in a statement following the news.

With this win under their belt, Pojman said the anti-abortion movement will transition into a new phase – the “pro-life movement 2.0,” as he called it.

Rebecca Parma, senior legislative associate with Texas Right to Life, said the fight is not over in their view.

“This is not the end of the story; it’s really just the end of a chapter. And we’re moving into a new chapter in the pro-life movement,” she said.

Pojman said that although they anticipate plenty of lawsuits about the court decision, his organization will begin to concentrate greater effort “in providing compassionate alternatives to women with unplanned pregnancies.”

In that, Pojman said his group will continue to push for funding of the state’s Alternatives to Abortion program, to which state legislators have appropriated $100 million. The program provides counseling, material assistance and social services for up to three years after birth. The state budget accounts for helping about 150,000 women each year, Pojman said.

While the program is funded at the whims of the state Legislature, Pojman said he believes there is enough support for the program that he does not see it ending any time in the near future. He added that his organization will continue to monitor the results of the program.

“We have a goal of creating a society in Texas which truly is compassionate for women with unplanned pregnancies so that no woman seeks to have an abortion,” Pojman said. “We want women to have all the resources they need to successfully carry their babies to term, give birth to the babies, (then) keep the babies or place the babies for adoption and would feel 100% at peace with those options.”

Current law, including the state’s pre-Roe statutes and so-called “trigger law” passed last year, criminalizes the act of performing an abortion or aiding someone in receiving an abortion through threats of heavy fines, litigation and jail time. This includes providing abortion pills, or any other procedure or method used in the completion an abortion, but it stops short of criminalizing mothers. There is some differing interpretation about when each of these laws will take effect.

Both Pojman and Parma said their organizations are firmly against criminalizing mothers.

Texas has banned almost all abortions — but it’s taken decades | NPR The Texas Newsroom

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By: SERGIO MARTÍNEZ-BELTRÁN

MARTINEZ-BELTRAN: That victory, however, was short-lived. Just a few weeks later, in another special session, Texas lawmakers passed a sweeping anti-abortion package that included a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of gestation. The U.S. Supreme Court eventually struck down key provisions of the bill, but by then, more than half of the state’s abortion providers closed. The story of how Texas got to this place of banning nearly all abortions is one that has taken decades.

AMY O’DONNELL: We’ve seen a lot of incremental gains over time.

MARTINEZ-BELTRAN: This is Amy O’Donnell, the communications director of the Texas Alliance for Life, a group that advocates against abortion.

O’DONNELL: The majority of Texans are pro-life, and we see this because they elect pro-life legislators who advocate for life.

MARTINEZ-BELTRAN: But polls tell a different story. Seventy-eight percent of Texas voters support some sort of access to abortion. Only 15% said it should never be allowed. That’s according to a survey released in April by the Texas Politics Project. Despite that, the state has continued curbing abortion, including passing a so-called trigger law, which now takes effect in 30 days. Most recently, last year, Governor Greg Abbott signed SB 8. That law, the first of its kind in the country, banned abortions as early as six weeks, empowering private citizens to enforce the law. Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, O’Donnell says the state will work to support women who are pregnant.

O’DONNELL: Texas is ready to take care of women in our state. And as we’ve seen, Texas prioritized the health of women and the life of babies.

MARTINEZ-BELTRAN: She points to the state’s program called Alternatives to Abortion as an example of that. The program provides assistance, counselling and maternity classes. But it’s also been criticized by Texas Democrats for its $100-million price tag and lack of transparency. But advocates for abortion rights say they’re not completely hopeless.