A new Texas bill that would protect unborn babies from abortion once they have a detectable heartbeat is being slammed as “dangerous” by a prominent abortion activist.
Wendy Davis, an abortion activist and former state senator who blocked a late-term abortion ban, called the heartbeat bill “the most dangerous I’ve ever seen,” according to the Texas Observer.
Sponsored by state Rep. Briscoe Cain, Texas House Bill 1500 would ban almost all abortions in the state by protecting unborn babies once their heartbeat is detectable, about six weeks of pregnancy.
Responding to her criticisms, Cain said his bill would save lives, not endanger them.
“Over 800,000 abortions ended the beating hearts of American babies last year. Abortion profiteers and heartless politicians are the real danger American children face,” he said in a comment to LifeNews. “The Texas Heartbeat Bill saves lives! Without apologies, I will never stop fighting to save innocent unborn babies and defending the God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all Texans.”
He is not alone. This winter, pro-life lawmakers have introduced a number of heartbeat bills including in Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee.
However, abortion activists already are fighting hard to keep the bills from passing. Davis, who now runs her own pro-abortion political group Deeds Not Words, plans to drum up opposition to the Texas bill through a petition and other efforts, according to the report.
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Aimee Arrambide, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, claimed pro-life politicians are just using the bill to pander to “special interest groups.” But even the biased Texas Tribune report disproved this claim when it noted that two of the leading pro-life groups in Texas have not endorsed the bill.
Some pro-lifers are hesitant to support such legislation because of concerns that it may not be upheld in a court battle. When courts rule against such laws, state taxpayers often are forced to reimburse pro-abortion groups for their legal fees.
In January, a judge declared Iowa’s heartbeat law unconstitutional. North Dakota and Arkansas passed heartbeat bills several years ago, but federal courts struck down both laws as well.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals said the following about its ruling on the six-week abortion ban: “Because there is no genuine dispute that (North Dakota’s law) generally prohibits abortions before viability — as the Supreme Court has defined that concept — and because we are bound by Supreme Court precedent holding that states may not prohibit pre-viability abortions, we must affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the plaintiffs.”
There is more hope that the new conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court may consider an abortion ban, but it is difficult to say if it would for certain – especially after Chief Justice John Roberts recently sided with the liberal justices on an abortion case.
