Monday afternoon, July 1st, marked the first day of yet another Special Session of the Texas Legislature during which the omnibus bill Pro-Life bill will again be considered. The House Committee on State Affairs heard testimony on House Bill 2 by Representative Jodie Laubenberg (R-Rockwall) on Tuesday for 9 hours. Representative Laubenberg defended the bill, responding to the arguments and exaggerations by the pro-abortion members of the committee. At the end of the hearing, Chairman Byron Cook moved to vote the bill out of committee, and the bill passed by 8-3. On the Senate side, SB 1 by Senator Glenn Hegar (R-Katy) will be heard in the Health and Human Services Committee on Monday, July 8th.
Among the Pro-Life witnesses in the House State Affairs Committee hearing, Adryana Boyne of Voces Action passionately spoke in defense of unborn Latino children:
Today the single-most dangerous place for a Latina is in her mother’s womb. The abortion industry has been coming after my community with fervor since Margaret Sanger began her weeding-out crusade.
Boyne explained that through her ministry she has seen how mothers, fathers, and children feel pain from abortion.
Carter Snead, PhD, Director of the Center for Ethics and Culture and law professor at Notre Dame University, defended HB 2 from a legal angle, demonstrating to the committee that HB 2 is constitutional.
There is absolutely nothing in the text, history, or tradition in the US constitution that precludes the state of Texas from extending the most basic protections of the law to 20-week old or older unborn children who are capable of experiencing pain. This is sufficient constitutional warrant to enact the modest restriction on abortion that you are considering this session.
Dr. Mary Catherine Maxian, an anesthesiologist, reminded the committee about the Houston abortionist Douglas Karpen, who is currently under investigation for committing the same atrocities as Kermit Gosnell.
There is something broken if you have clinics like Douglas Karpen’s… where he has babies born alive very frequently and twists their heads off. The government does have an interest in practice of medicine, and protecting human life.
