We shouldn’t be surprised that the abortion lobby that chanted “Hail Satan” in the Texas Capitol has once again found support from the Satanic Temple. A rabid opponent of all Pro-Life measures, the Satanic Temple has weighed in on issues in Texas before. The radical group was outspoken in their disapproval of the life-saving legislation passed in the 2013 Pro-Life Omnibus Bill, House Bill 2. Most recently, the group voiced opposition to the new rules by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) that require the bodies of babies killed in abortion to be buried or cremated.
Under the current rules, abortion mills can dispose of the bodies of preborn children killed in abortion in sanitary landfills. As Governor Greg Abbott stated, the bodies of these children were “treated like medical waste” instead of human beings. The governor requested the changes to the HHSC rules as part of his LIFE Initiative.
When HHSC released the proposed changes in July, the abortion lobby was outraged. During the public comment period on the changes, HHSC received more than 35,000 comments. The department announced last week that the changes will go into effect on December 19.
In response to the news, the Satanic Temple posted their objections. The group claims that “burial rites are a well-established component of religious practice.” This claim would be contested even by many secular pundits. Burial is not exclusively religious, nor is HHSC instituting a religious practice. Burial is a human right. Of course, the real reason for the Satanic Temple’s objections is their obstinate refusal to recognize what science and common sense confirm: a preborn child is a human being.
According to Reuters, the Satanic Temple has threatened legal action against the state of Texas “to protect the rights of our members.” Texas has already weathered numerous legal attacks from the abortion lobby on many Pro-Life measures. If the Satanists attempt a lawsuit, as they did in Missouri, Texas Right to Life is confident in the state’s ability to defend their legitimate interest in affirming the dignity of the preborn.
Predictably, Texas’s “Abortion Barbie” Wendy Davis emerged from obscurity to weigh in on the rules, describing them as “an undue burden on women seeking abortion.” Contrary to Davis’s take, the rules do not burden women seeking elective abortions in our state. Instead, the rules affirm the dignity of the preborn children, the innocent victims of abortion.
Texas Right to Life’s legislative director, John Seago, stated that Texas Right to Life supports the new rules, which “clarify the manner in which abortion clinics handled the bodies of these victims of abortion.” However, Seago cautioned:
Texas Right to Life strongly believes that the Pro-Life movement must go far beyond simply regulating the disposition and donation of these bodies after abortion. Texas must take positive steps to stop the horrific injustice of elective abortion instead of just regulating the aftermath.
In the upcoming legislative session, Texas Right to Life urges our Pro-Life legislators to focus on bills that will stop the killing of the preborn in our state.
