Posted on 07/02/2013 10:12:46 AM PDT by EXCH54FE
A new bill that limits the murder of the unborn to 20-weeks and requires abortion clinics to meet basic medical standards has been officially filed in the Texas State House. HB 2 declares that the state has an obligation to protect the unborn.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, called a second special session of the Texas legislature to pass the late-term abortion ban bill.
“I am calling the Legislature back into session because too much important work remains undone for the people of Texas. Through their duly elected representatives, the citizens of our state have made crystal clear their priorities for our great state,” Perry said. “Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn. Texans want a transportation system that keeps them moving. Texans want a court system that is fair and just. We will not allow the breakdown of decorum and decency to prevent us from doing what the people of this state hired us to do.”
The bill reads in part:
The compelling state interest in protecting the lives of unborn children from the stage at which substantial medical evidence indicates that an unborn child is capable of feeling pain is intended to be separate from and independent of the compelling state interest in protecting the lives of unborn children from the stage of viability.
•Increase abortion facility safety standards to the level of ambulatory surgical centers to shut down Gosnell-like abortion providers in Texas,
•Require the 18,000 RU-486 abortions performed each year be done according to FDA safety standards,
•Require physicians who perform abortions to be qualified to treat life-threatening complications after botched abortions and have privileges at a local hospital, and
•Ban abortions on unborn children beginning at 20 weeks after fertilization, when scientific evidence clearly shows babies can feel pain.
(Excerpt) Read more at freedomoutpost.com ...
This makes after 20 weeks illegal, with ALL of the typical exceptions including rape, incest, harm to mother or fetal abnormality. Hell, this is NOT an unprecedented, extreme position; this is the law in twelve other states - ALREADY.
Plain and simple, the Dems want to be able to kill that baby right up until the last toe-nail passes the vaginal entry - PERIOD! ANY restriction from being able to kill that baby is considered a “War on Women!” and the media plays it up and sells it to the public as if this is the truth. It is simply BS!
If anything, this bill is more FOR the health of women than ANY abortion title implies. It forces Doctors to be able to admit patients to a hospital, it makes a hospital be available within a certain distance (in case of emergency), it makes abortion clinics meet medical-procedure-level standards (because abortion IS a medical procedure) oh, and it means a woman must decide to kill her baby within FIVE months of getting pregnant - OH, THE EFFING HORROR!
Even the Dems have stated that less than 2% of ALL abortions done in Texas are done AFTER 20 weeks, so then WHY would you not want to limit this procedure? These people are NOT “pro-choice” they are all about KILLING, KILLING, KILLING babies!
I should add, the left is immoral and evil, but they are NOT stupid. Their leaders know exactly what they’re doing, and that’s why they’ve been winning for decades.
This Texas law is an excellent opportunity to strike back! This isn’t about banning abortion! It’s about women’s safety. It’s about the quality of medical care, and it’s about saving infants that would otherwise survive outside the womb.
It wasn’t all that long ago when the left changed gay marriage into “marriage equality.” Well, we’ve got to learn to use their own techniques against them. Again. This law is for safe, quality medical care—not anti-abortion. It’s about saving children who have developed enough to feel pain and survive on their own outside the womb. This is NOT an anti-abortion law. It’s about making abortion safe, legal, and rare—the exact same rhetoric used by the left to beat us earlier.
ExTxMarine: “These people are NOT “pro-choice” they are all about KILLING, KILLING, KILLING babies!”
You get it, and we can beat them at their own game. 20 weeks is more than reasonable, but this threatens the left. It moves toward further restrictions on abortion, and they can’t stand it. They aren’t battling this because 20 weeks itself is so bad. They’re battling this because they see it as a gradual shift toward respect for life. The hard core left wants infanticide, but the vast majority of Americans oppose that. This law makes the left look ridiculous and unreasonable. It moves toward making abortion safer and rarer. It’s sets the stage for further reductions in abortions. This is exactly how we can beat the left.
< So, are you saying that the Texas House and the U.S. House shouldn't attempt to legislate a 20-week ban? We should remain supine, for fear of unleashing a stampede of RINOs?
Liberals advance their agenda by accepting half-loaves. Do you suggest we pursue no loaf at all?
Like I said this will lead to court challenges that will take a long time to work their way through the system while the business as usual RINO politicians get to use the emotional feelings of Pro-Life supporters to their advantage.
The NRL by the way used to discourage states from passing Pro-Life legislation limiting abortions because they were afraid it would create court cases that would solidify Roe vs. Wade as the law of the land with federal courts reaffirming it.
The abortion clinic regulations may survive muster but I suspect in the end a federal court will strike down the 20 week thing.
Five years ago this would have never happened but now that the grassroots are more stirred up than ever, the economy is on the skids and RINO’s like Boehner have teamed up with Obama to give us higher taxes and a higher debt ceiling with amnesty on the brink of being pushed through, its time for the GOP-E to give the “mad dog” conservatives some raw meat. So we get this abortion legislation thrown at us as if we are a pack of angry canines.
“Raw meat” is the expression they’re using over in the UK right now as David Cameron’s “Conservative Party” led government fends off the challenge from the new UKIP real conservative party with all kinds of symbolic ititiatives.
I’m not biting on this raw meat.
I couldn't care less about Rubio's proposed national 20 week bill in the Senate. It has no chance of passage.
The Texas 20-week bill, however, will pass. And it probably won't be challenged in court, since SCOTUS has already passed on the Nebraska bill. Nonetheless, it will make the Texas libs rabid.
It is designed to start a fight with the libs that the GOP-E can exploit to divert our attention and emotions away from their selling out this country with amnesty, among other things.
Hate the liberals for supporting abortion after 20 weeks and forget about the GOP promoting amnesty for illegals.
Hate Obama and forget about Boehner’s deal with him to raise taxes and increase the debt ceiling.
And the list goes on and on because the GOP-E will have to mobilize all our resentments to cover their cave ins to the liberals and Obama.
#equalprotectionforposterity
Texas H.B. 2 dehumanizes the child, denies Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection
Texas House Bill 2 divides unborn children into two classes of persons: those who feel pain, and those who do not. The bill then provides full protection only to unborn children who are claimed to feel pain.
SECTION 1. (a) (2) the state has a compelling state interest in
protecting the lives of unborn children from the stage at which
substantial medical evidence indicates that these children are
capable of feeling pain[.]
Children who are supposedly not old enough to feel pain are dehumanized and therefore left unprotected.
The Texas Penal Code clearly identifies all children in the womb as persons (Title 1, Chapter 1, Sec. 1.07.), without regard to gestational age, or to any sensory ability or supposed awareness. All are protected equally in Sec. 1.07, without distinction.
The proposed House bill ignores current law. Rather than equally protect all, the bill creates a prerequisite physical condition to qualify for full protection: a measurable sensation of pain. This arbitrary standard violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the law to all persons.
The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution instructs:
“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
H.B. 2 is clearly at odds with the Fourteenth Amendment, and is therefore unconstitutional, as it fails to equally protect all persons in their right to life.
The bill is not justified in creating this new injustice, not even by the existence of injustice and contradiction in the current law. Texas Penal Code, Title 5, Chapter 19, Sec. 19.06 certainly qualifies as unjust and unconstitutional, and should be repealed.
But Rubio sure does care about that bill because its part of his ticket to make people forget about amnesty and the Gang of Eight.
#equalprotectionforposterity
The Texas House bill (H.B. 2) promises to nullify itself, once its restrictions are found to impose an “undue burden” or “substantial obstacle” in the way of ANY pregnant woman in her ability to have an abortion.
In effect, the bill pledges to enable every woman to have an abortion.
(4) restricting elective abortions at or later than 20
weeks post-fertilization, as provided by this Act, does not impose an undue burden or a substantial obstacle on a woman’s ability to have an abortion because:
(A) the woman has adequate time to decide whether
to have an abortion in the first 20 weeks after fertilization; and
(B) this Act does not apply to abortions that are
necessary to avert the death or substantial and irreversible
physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman or abortions that are performed on unborn children with severe fetal abnormalities.
(b) The legislature intends that every application of this
statute to every individual woman shall be severable from each other. In the unexpected event that the application of this statute is found to impose an impermissible undue burden on any pregnant woman or group of pregnant women, the application of the statute to those women shall be severed from the remaining applications of the statute that do not impose an undue burden, and those remaining applications shall remain in force and unaffected, consistent with Section 10 of this Act.
However, I don't think that's going to work.
Because Rubio has lost all credibility with the base. Nobody is going to fight on his behalf.
Something I sent to the Governor today.
An important message for Gov. Rick Perry and all pro-life Texas Legislators:
Simply repeal Texas Penal Code, Title 5, Chapter 19, Sec. 19.06., and the Texas Code will then be in perfect conformance with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, all of the stated purposes of the U.S. Constitution you swore to support and defend, and the explicit, imperative equal protection requirements of the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments.
*strike*
Sec. 19.06. APPLICABILITY TO CERTAIN CONDUCT. This chapter does not apply to the death of an unborn child if the conduct charged is:
(1) conduct committed by the mother of the unborn child;
(2) a lawful medical procedure performed by a physician or other licensed health care provider with the requisite consent, if the death of the unborn child was the intended result of the procedure;
(3) a lawful medical procedure performed by a physician or other licensed health care provider with the requisite consent as part of an assisted reproduction as defined by Section 160.102, Family Code; or
(4) the dispensation of a drug in accordance with law or administration of a drug prescribed in accordance with law.
Added by Acts 2003, 78th Leg., ch. 822, Sec. 2.02, eff. Sept. 1, 2003.
*end strike*
Abortion at any stage of human development will then be completely illegal everywhere in the Lone Star State, primarily because of the Personhood language you put in the Code nearly ten years ago:
Texas Penal Code, Title 1., Chapter 1., Sec. 1.07.
(26) “Individual” means a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.
(49) “Death” includes, for an individual who is an unborn child, the failure to be born alive.
You’re going to take political fire no matter what you do, so you might as well take that fire for fulfilling the first and most important obligation of your oath: the equal protection of the unalienable right to life of our Posterity. Frankly, if you will do this, and then back it up with the full weight of the executive and legislative power of the great State of Texas, you will go down in history as a great hero of human rights.
Conversely, you can continue to forward the immoral, unconstitutional, anti-Equal Protection bill you’re now pushing and you WILL go into the history books as nothing more than part of what is destroying the moral, constitutional, and legal foundations of this great free republic we call America.
Sincerely,
Gov. Rick Perry and the “pro-life” Republicans screwed up the Texas Code a decade ago, when they recognized the personhood of the individual child in the womb, and then granted “legal” permission to kill every single one of them. So, all they have to do now to make abortion illegal in Texas, and to provide equal protection for every person within their jurisdiction, as the Constitution absolutely requires, is to strip out the permission they put there. The current bill is horrid, from end to end. It makes a bad legal code even worse. And it doesn’t protect a single child.
My friend of mine who is promoting the immoral, unconstitutional Rick Perry “pro-life” bill asked me: “Should we sit on our hands till the perfect legislation comes along? As 80,000 babies dies per year?” My response? “NO. The Texas legislature should revisit what they passed a decade ago in the wake of the infamous Lacey Peterson murder. That code section rightfully recognizes the personhood of the individual child in the womb. But then it contains another section that grants permission in the law for abortionists to murder children. So, all they have to do is strike out the second section, and voila, abortion is illegal in Texas, and the Texas Code is brought into compliance with God’s requirements, the laws of nature, the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the stated purposes of the Constitution, and the explicit requirement for equal protection found in the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments. Do it my way, and all are protected. Do it Perry’s way, and we have forty years of experience that tells us that all will continue to die, one way or another.”
We often rightly criticize our elected officials for voting for bills they’ve never read. But how often do we hypocritically do the same thing when we support particular policies or legislation? I’ve asked a number of supporters of the immoral, unconstitutional Rick Perry Texas ‘pro-life” bill which is now under consideration, and other compromised bills like it, if they have read what they are supporting and thought through the moral, constitutional, legal, and political consequences of that sort of legislation. It’s pretty obvious so far that none of them have.
If politicians won’t provide the equal protection that the Constitution explicitly requires for the most helpless and innocent among us, those little persons who are still in the womb, why on God’s green earth would you ever be surprised when those same politicians ignore the rest of the Constitution and fail to protect YOUR rights?
Good night.
If you have the governmental power to regulate the murdering of little boys and girls, you have the power to protect them all, as your sacred oath requires.
Thank you for digging up the details on this bill.
It appears to have Roe Vs. Wade language written into it and contradicts itself in the details about limiting abortions.
Fetal abnormality is something I never knew of as an exception in news reports about the legislation.
But based on what you just posted, this bill reminds me of all the promises about “border security” in the amnesty bill.
This “abortion restricting” legislation in Texas looks like the scam being perpetrated as “border security” in the immigration bill.
Its no wonder the Republicans and the National Right To Life are pushing this legislation all over the country. Its symbolic and doesn’t mean anything and like posters said will “stand SCOTUS muster” (won’t be overturned) because its language reaffirms Roe vs. Wade.
All it does is stir up a fight and keep Pro-Life voters thinking how great the GOP is and how bad the Democrats are.
It gets the liberals and Democrats stirred up too to keep their base in line thinking the GOP is out to take away a woman’s right to choose when it isn’t.
Both parties need the emotional diversion of a fight.
The Dems get to work this issue to raise money and keep libs in line who are upset about things like NSA spying and so on.
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