Candidates express mixed reactions to dispute | Odessa American

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By: Ruth Campbell

The Texas Right to Life PAC general purpose committee campaign finance support lists Seliger as a candidate it opposes, although he was endorsed by Texas Alliance for Life and Life PAC.

“Texas Right to Life gave me a 100 percent rating and they still are contributing money against me and attacking me. It does seem there is something wrong with this picture. You would have to look at their donors to see if there are any extraordinarily large contributors who might persuade them to attack someone who is 100 percent pro-life, even by their own rating system. Nobody is more definitively pro-life than the Catholic bishops. When a group presumes they are somehow more authoritative, there must be another agenda,” Seliger said.

Texas bishops raise concerns about state pro-life group | Catholic News Agency

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By: Staff

“Uncharitable mischaracterizations of our political and policy goals serve only to dissolve the spirit of collaboration that yielded recent legislative victories to protect the most vulnerable in our state—victories that were hard-fought against the leadership of the Texas House,” they said.
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Joe Pojman of the Texas Alliance for Life in Austin told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that “some of [Texas Right to Life’s] goals are not well-founded in law.”

Pro-life battle splits state’s Catholic bishops and Texas Right to Life | Cleburne Times-Review

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By: John Austin, CNHI LLC State Reporter

The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops’ recent advisory urging dioceses not to participate with Texas Right to Life or allow it to use parish sites might puzzle observers who assume they share common goals.
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“Part of it is tactics; part of it is also end goals,” said Joe Pojman, Texas Alliance for Life executive director. “Texas Right to Life has allied itself with a non-pro-life organization — Empower Texans — which advocates its own brand of economic conservatism.”
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Pojman said his organization, which has taken issue with Empower Texans, has “nothing but praise” for Straus, despite not passing all its bills under his leadership.

“There are limits to what we can do,” in areas such as working to pass state laws that would end abortion in Texas, but be struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, Pojman said. “We don’t have the votes on the Supreme Court.”

As for the Texas Right to Life primary endorsements, Pojman said many are based on economic conservatism.

“We have a scorecard,” as does Texas Right to Life, Pojman said. “We have people who scored 100 percent who did badly on theirs.”

A vicious war of words is tearing Texas’ anti-abortion movement in half | EnvironmentGuru

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Texas Alliance for Life and Texans for Life Coalition, two of the groups recommended as Texas Right to Life alternatives by TCCB, have come under fire from Texas Right to Life’s executive director, Jim Graham, who has labeled both “fake pro-life organizations.” Graham has also nicknamed Texas Alliance for Life Executive Director Joe Pojman “Joe Poison.” That nickname has less to do with Pojman’s politics — which are staunchly anti-choice — and more to do with calculated decisions, like testifying against unconstitutional anti-abortion legislation likely to be defeated in court. Pojman told the San Antonio Express-News that when pro-choice plaintiffs win in court, “We view that as financing the abortion providers.”
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“We regret that there is a split in the pro-life movement,” Pojman told the Express-News. “It is not our preference, and we seek to have all the groups working together, but a marriage takes two willing partners.”
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Anti-choice organizations have plenty of company. Texas Right to Life is allied with Empower Texans, a conservative group that targets center-right Republicans. A 2014 Dallas Morning News editorial named Michael Quinn Sullivan, the group’s president, as a towering figure in the state — one on a “mission to purge the GOP establishment of people who flunk his purity test for conservatism.”

That mentality seems to drive Texas Right to Life as well, per both the TCCB directive and lawmakers themselves. In addition to outgoing Straus — the state’s first Jewish Speaker of the House, who Texas Right to Life’s Graham has called “Herr Straus” — a number of other conservative politicians have also drawn the organization’s wrath.

A vicious war of words is tearing Texas’ anti-abortion movement in half | ThinkProgress

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By: E.A. Crunden

A written directive published last Thursday by the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops (TCCB) singled out Texas Right to Life, advising parishes and other Catholics to avoid any volunteer work with the organization.
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Texas Alliance for Life and Texans for Life Coalition, two of the groups recommended as Texas Right to Life alternatives by TCCB, have come under fire from Texas Right to Life’s executive director, Jim Graham, who has labeled both “fake pro-life organizations.” Graham has also nicknamed Texas Alliance for Life Executive Director Joe Pojman “Joe Poison.”

That nickname has less to do with Pojman’s politics — which are staunchly anti-choice — and more to do with calculated decisions, like testifying against unconstitutional anti-abortion legislation likely to be defeated in court. Pojman told the San Antonio Express-News that when pro-choice plaintiffs win in court, “We view that as financing the abortion providers.”