The full Texas state Senate is on schedule to hear HB2 Friday afternoon, following 6-3 approval today by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
Less than two weeks ago an eleventh-hour filibuster and an out-of-control crowd in the Senate gallery prevented passage of the measure in a special session called by pro-life Gov. Rick Perry.
Wasting no time, Perry immediately called a second special session and yesterday HB2 passed the House on a vote of 96-49.
Disruptions were at a minimum today, according to media accounts, no doubt because Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst warned that if disruptions occurred, he would clear the gallery.
Although described by opponents in near-apocalyptic terms, HB2 addresses components of the abortion issue that enjoy strong support.
Nowhere is that clearer than in the ban on abortions performed on children capable of feeling pain—20 weeks, according to abundant medical evidence. A Texas Tribune poll last month found 62% approval. That is in line with other polls that have asked the public’s opinion.
HB2 would also keep the Kermit Gosnells of this world out of Texas by requiring that abortions be performed at an ambulatory surgical center and that the abortionist have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles, in case there are complications.
Worth noting is that pro-abortionists in the Texas state Senate tried to minimize the medical evidence demonstrating that babies at 20 weeks can experience pain. This can be readily refuted.
Some of the extensive evidence that unborn children have the capacity to experience pain, at least by 20 weeks fetal age, is available on the NRLC website at http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/Fetal_Pain/ and also here: www.doctorsonfetalpain.com
The science behind the findings in the bill was explored at a May 23 congressional hearing. The testimony of the witnesses is posted here: www.nrlc.org/abortion/Fetal_Pain/Witnesses1797Hearing052313.html.
A medical illustration of one common method of late abortion (“D&E”) is posted here: www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/DEabortiongraphic.html.
Yesterday NRL News Today ran an important overview by Randall K. O’Bannon, Ph.D., NRL Director of Education and Research (“The pain may be worse for unborn babies aborted at 20 weeks”). It is MUST reading and accomplishes (among many other goals) two in particular.
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First, Dr. O’Bannon explains that “At twenty weeks, the child has all the parts in place – the pain receptors, spinal cord, nerve tracts, and thalamus – needed for transmitting and feeling pain.” It’s all there.
Second, “the pain suppressing mechanisms that infants and adults generally possess do not begin to develop until weeks thirty to thirty-two. As a consequence, the child aborted at twenty to thirty weeks is likely to be not just capable of feeling pain, but feeling it more widely, and intensely, and unremittingly, than a child born at term or an adult.” (Emphasis added).
Check in early and often tomorrow as we keep track of HB2 as it approaches a vote in Texas state Senate.
Daniel Miller is responsible for nearly all of National Right to Life News' political writing.
With the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, Daniel Miller developed a deep obsession with U.S. politics that has never let go of the political scientist. Whether it's the election of Joe Biden, the midterm elections in Congress, the abortion rights debate in the Supreme Court or the mudslinging in the primaries - Daniel Miller is happy to stay up late for you.
Daniel was born and raised in New York. After living in China, working for a news agency and another stint at a major news network, he now lives in Arizona with his two daughters.
