Texas Senate poised to pass ‘trigger’ ban, prohibiting abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned | Dallas Morning News

Visit Website

By: Alex Briseno

Texas’ push to restrict abortion comes as abortion rights advocates and opponents set their sights on the Supreme Court after news landed last week that it had agreed to take up a Mississippi law that bans nearly all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy.

Such tests of Roe were expected, particularly after then-President Donald Trump appointed three conservative justices to the Supreme Court.

The court’s decision to consider Mississippi’s law and Texas’ push to pass abortion restrictions in the interim have abortion rights advocates reminding Texans that abortion is still legal as they vow to fight Texas’ laws in court.

Texas Alliance for Life and other abortion opponents welcome the recent developments. That includes the Senate’s latest action on the trigger bill, known by abortion opponents as the “Human Life Protection Act,” which is a “principal goal” for Texas Alliance for Life, according to the organization’s executive director, Joe Pojman.

“The passage of the Human Life Protection Act is especially significant in light of the recent announcement of the United States Supreme Court to consider the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case,” Pojman said. “To whatever extent the Supreme Court allows states to protect unborn babies from abortion — whether at 15 weeks, six weeks, or at conception — the Human Life Protection Act will go into effect to the same extent.”

There has never been an antiabortion law like the one just passed in Texas | The Lily

Visit Website

By: Caroline Kitchener

The Lilith Fund was founded in 2001, when Democratic legislators still held the Texas House.

Things were different then, said Joe Pojman, the executive director of another antiabortion group, Texas Alliance for Life. In the early 2000s, antiabortion groups in Texas weren’t nearly as effective as they are today. Only one antiabortion law passed in the state in 2001, compared to 10 in 2017 and five in 2019.

Pojman has been campaigning against abortion since 1987. That year, he started pushing for a law that required minors to notify their parents before they could have an abortion.

“They didn’t need permission, just notification,” he said. “It was a very modest law.”

Still, he said, it took 12 years to pass.

Since then, there have been ups and downs for the antiabortion movement in Texas, he said. He thought it had reached a turning point in 2013, when the legislature passed a law requiring all abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges. When the law took effect, along with other restrictions on abortion clinics, approximately half of all abortion clinics in Texas were forced to close. The law made it all the way to the Supreme Court before it was struck down in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.

Now, Pojman tries not to be overly optimistic. Texas Alliance for Life is “neutral” on the Heartbeat Act, he said, because he feels confident it won’t make it through the courts.

Other antiabortion lobbyists, like Seago, are not so cautious.

The mood is certainly far more hopeful this session, Pojman said as he looked around the Capitol Grill, the cafeteria inside the Texas Capitol. Conservative lawmakers and lobbyists had abandoned their masks, strategizing together over lunch.

After Republicans in Texas got clobbered in the 2018 elections, when former U.S. congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-Tex.) coaxed new Democratic voters to the polls, “there was fear in the air,” Pojman said. When six other states passed six- or eight-week abortion bans in 2019, Republican legislators in Texas hung back, worried they might lose more seats if they came down hard on abortion.

All that changed after the 2020 election, Pojman said, when Democrats across the country fixated on turning Texas blue. Democratic money poured into the state — but Republicans only lost one seat, held by the lone Republican who supported abortion rights.

“That blue wave came into Texas, crashed on the rocks and went nowhere,” Pojman said.

This year, there is a mounting feeling that Texas should go big on antiabortion legislation, he said, to “show the Supreme Court that, down here in Texas, we’re pro-life.”

“The fear is gone,” he said — and legislators are willing to try anything.

Near-Complete Ban on Abortion Is Signed Into Law in Texas | The New York Times

Visit Website

By: Edgar Sandoval and Dave Montgomery

Joe Pojman, the executive director with the Texas Alliance for Life, an anti-abortion advocacy group, said the new law would face difficult legal challenges, but it nonetheless left him optimistic about the direction of the anti-abortion movement. He pointed to the growing number of states and localities that have passed restrictive measures.

U.S. Supreme Court to take up abortion case with implications for Texas “Heartbeat Bill” | Spectrum News 1

Visit Website

By: NIKI GRISWOLD

The makeup of the court has anti-abortion advocates like Joe Pojman optimistic.

“We think we have more votes on the Supreme Court, more justices who are willing to take a fresh look at the Roe v. Wade precedent and possibly untie the hands of the legislature so they can begin to protect unborn babies from abortion,” said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life.

“I think it’s not just possible, I think it’s reasonably likely that Roe v. Wade will at least be significantly eroded, if not completely overturned. There may very well be a five justice majority to do that now,” said Dale Carpenter, a constitutional law professor at Southern Methodist University.

This legislative session, lawmakers passed bills increasing abortion restrictions in the state, including one that would ban abortions as early as six weeks, which is before most women know they are pregnant.

It’s set to go to the Governor’s desk, where Abbott says he will sign it into law.

“Acting through our elected officials, Texas has shown itself to be a very pro-life state,” said Pojman. “We think that an unborn child is worthy of protection, and that is the right and the responsibility of the state of Texas.”

https://foxsanantonio.com/

Visit Website

By: Melanie Barden

Thursday—the Texas Senate gave final approval for a controversial bill known as the “Heartbeat Bill.”

“It’s a bill that would protect unborn children in the womb from abortion beginning when the heartbeat is detected which is around 6 weeks,” says Joe Pojman with the Texas Alliance for Life.

Pojman says the bill is a novel concept—not just for Texas but the entire country.

There are no criminal penalties for performing abortions after a heartbeat is detected.

But it gives people the right to sue or file civil litigation against physicians who perform the procedure after that time frame.

Critics say the time frame isn’t long enough– as some women don’t know they’re pregnant that early on.

“I think the authors of the bill would argue the unborn child is still a person regardless of whether the mother knows the unborn child or not,” says Pojman.

The final bill includes several amendments including in situations of rape and incest—the person who impregnates someone cannot sue a doctor.

Amendments also specify doctors’ rights to defend their practice decisions in court.

The bill is now headed to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk where he’s signaled he’ll sign it in the coming days.

However, legal challenges are expected.