By: John C. Moritz, USA Today Network Austin Bureau
Legislation to prohibit the sale or donation of abortion-related fetal tissue won approval Wednesday in the Texas Senate with four Democrats joining the solid block of Republicans. The measure, Senate Bill 8, was offered in response to secretly recorded videos that surfaced in 2015 that purported to show a representative from Planned Parenthood in Houston trying to set up the sale of tissue resulting from abortion.
By: Scott Braddock
House Bill 35’s aim, Cook said, is to prohibit what he has often called an “abhorrent” practice of disposing of a fetus by placing it in a garbage disposal – it’s something that’s been allowed in Texas for nearly 30 years. In laying out the bill, Chairman Cook credited his Chief of Staff Toni Barcellona for discovering in April of last year that the practice was allowed by rule. She made the discovery while preparing for an interim hearing on fetal tissue research, Cook said.
By: Chuck Lindell
Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, said the bill would “rectify a wrong that has been in state rules for more than two decades.” “The bodies of the victims of abortion should never be treated as medical waste,” he said.
By: Micaiah Bilger
Texas Alliance for Life supports the bill. Executive Director Joe Pojman told the Senate committee that these lawsuits wrongly make doctors “accountable for disabilities they had no part in creating,” the report states.
By: Madlin Mekelburg
Wrongful-birth suits allow parents of a child born with a genetic disability to sue their doctor if they say they weren’t properly warned about the potential for the disability or counseled on their options, including the parents’ choice to have an abortion based on the severity of the condition. Sen. Brandon Creighton, the author of the bill, said allowing the lawsuits could encourage doctors to seek out every possible disability and even promote abortions to avoid litigation. He also said he takes issue with the idea that there are “wrongful” births.
By: Nicole Cobler
“We’re not recommending that the legislature pass any bill that would not withstand a federal court challenge,” Pojman said. “This is not a good time to challenge Roe v. Wade. The outcome is predictable.”