By: KVUE staff
AUSTIN, Texas — Thousands of demonstrators took part in Austin’s annual Texas Rally for Life on Saturday afternoon.
The anti-abortion rally kicked off around 1 p.m. at the intersection of 14th Street and San Jacinto Boulevard in Downtown Austin, with a march to the Capitol.
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, the crowd size was between 5,000 and 6,000 people. Around 5,000 people attended the event last year.
By: Daniel Friend
“[T]housands of pro-life Texans, including Texas Alliance for Life Executive Director, Joe Pojman, Ph.D., will gather on the corner of 14th Street and San Jacinto to march to the south steps of the Capitol for the annual Texas Rally for Life,” according to a media advisory from Texas Alliance for Life.
By: Stella Wieser
Paddie has received endorsements from Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Alliance for Life. He received the “Legislator of the Year” award from the Rural Jobs Coalition in 2019 for authoring a bill that would have championed rural small businesses and opportunity zones. His tenure in the House includes leading the House’s energy resources committee, serving as vice chair on the sunset committee, and serving on both the licensing and administrative procedures committee and the redistricting committee.
Joe Pojman with Texas Alliance for Life says Tinslee is terminally ill and doctor’s have done the best they can to save her but keeping her on life support is just hurting her more.
“We think the law is very clear.. Doctor’s should not have to order nurses to perform medical interventions that harm patients even when the family, with all good intentions, thinks that’s the best thing,” said Pojman. “Family are not doctors,” he said.
In the brief, the hospital states, continuing treatment goes against physician’s ethical or moral beliefs.
“The most humane and medically ethical position is to remove those interventions which is causing this baby pain and suffering day by day,” Pojman said. “Continuing to do medical interventions and forcing that baby to stay alive is harming Tinslee,” he said.
By: Advocate Staff Report
Also, the Texas Alliance for Life PAC endorsed Morrison for her commitment to protecting the life of the unborn, the release said. Last session, Morrison passed the Texas Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, which protects infants who survive attempted abortions and ensures they receive medical care.
By: Cassidy Morrison
Other state anti-abortion groups, such as the Texas Alliance for Life, believe, as do Tinslee’s doctors, that the girl is in constant pain and will never recover. Texas Alliance for Life has avoided intervening on Lewis’s behalf, and Dr. Joe Pojman, the group’s executive director, said the hospital is justified ethically in following Texas law, which says an ethics committee of physicians may remove a patient like Tinslee from life-sustaining machines after 10 days if they conclude that her health will not improve.
“The ethics committee at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, the facility that has wonderfully kept Tinslee alive since birth, agreed with the doctors’ assessment that the best course of action was to discontinue life-sustaining intervention causing her undue harm,” Pojman wrote in the Federalist.
The groups, both dedicated to opposing abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide, disagree on the constitutionality of the 10-day rule. The Texas Alliance for Life supports a Jan. 2 court decision allowing Tinslee’s doctors at Cook Children’s to remove Tinslee from life support. While also seeking out other hospitals for Tinslee, Lewis is working with Texas Right to Life to appeal the decision on the grounds that the 10-day rule denies patients due process.
Texas Right to Life argues, despite physicians testifying otherwise, that Tinslee’s condition is not fatal and that the 10-day rule “allows a hospital committee to pull the plug on the child against her mother’s will for any reason.” The group called a press conference with Lewis on Jan. 6 to advocate for Lewis’s right to make health decisions for her daughter.
“Just like any parent, I want the best for my daughter. I definitely respect Tinslee’s physicians’ abilities and their opinions, but I have not had a voice in her current care plan,” Lewis said.
The Texas Alliance for Life, on the other hand, said the rule allows parents and doctors to work together to decide whether keeping a patient on life support is prolonging his or her suffering with no hope of recovery.
“We regret that there is a pretty stark difference between Texas Right to Life regarding the dispute resolution process,” Dr. Joe Pojman told the Washington Examiner. “We believe it’s the best part of the law because it allows doctors and families to decide what the best options are to provide for the terminally ill patient and gives the family time to find an alternative provider.”