The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional protection for abortion and allowing states to set their own laws regulating the procedure. This represents one of the most significant judicial reversals in generations and is expected to have far-reaching consequences for all Texans.
Texas will ban all abortions from the moment of fertilization, starting 30 days after the ruling, with narrow exceptions only to save the life of a pregnant patient or prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.” The law will criminalize the person who performs the abortion, not the person who undergoes the procedure.
Texas House District 63 Rep. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, lauded the Supreme Court’s decision and called Friday a “historic day.”
“Every life is a precious gift, and with today’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade the court has upheld the sanctity of life, which is deeply rooted in our Texas values,” Parker said in a statement. “Texas has prioritized supporting expectant mothers in need with the resources necessary to support life. This past legislative session, laws were passed extending Medicaid health care coverage to six months post-partum, along with $445 million in appropriations directed to women’s healthcare and the Alternatives to Abortion Program providing counseling, mentoring, care coordination, and material assistance.”
Parker said that in the next Texas legislative session, “the conversation must advance to support mothers and children in need, including making certain the doors to adoption are always open to loving families and community-based services are accessible for the ability to live. This is the human rights issue of our time.”
My full statement on today’s Supreme Court decision for Dobbs v. Jackson: pic.twitter.com/WO6lMRdwJ8
— Michael Burgess, MD (@michaelcburgess) June 24, 2022
Some local Democrats criticized the decision. Flower Mound Area Democrats Chair Sandra Weinstein called Friday “a dark day in the history of this country.”
“Make no mistake, this is not about ‘right-to-life.’ Many Texans care more about their guns than they care about the people killed by guns,” she said. “As a state with the eighth highest maternal mortality rate, we certainly don’t care about mothers. This is about a woman having fewer rights than a collection of cells that may or may not become a life, this is about imposing pseudo-religious ‘values’ on a nation that was founded upon separation of church and state.”
Weinstein went on to say that “more women will die due to the impact of this decision in states like Texas with a heartbeat law—children will lose their mothers, families will lose sources of financial and emotional support because there are those who value a fetus, even an unviable one, more then they value the lives of women.
“And it won’t stop there—we’ll see legislation overturning other constitutional rights like the right to love and marry whom we want, regardless of color, sex or religion,” she said. “We could even see state legislation banning contraception. My hope is that as voters we rise up and let Texas and the country know that we will not be controlled by the government, we will not be relegated to a subclass of humans with fewer rights to life than a fetus by electing pro-women candidates.”
Many Democrats in Denton were already planning to hold an abortion rights rally next week, before what they say could be a Denton City Council vote to decriminalize abortion citywide.
Part of this news story originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/22/supreme-court-abortion-texas/
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