How extreme is the Texas Republican Party’s new list of legislative priorities when it comes to abortion? Extreme enough, apparently, that one anti-abortion group worries it will do the movement irreparable damage.
Anti-abortion group Texas Alliance for Life is livid after the Texas GOP voted during its annual convention to include language in its legislative priorities that, according to the organization, could lead to women who receive abortions being imprisoned or even facing the death penalty.
The state party’s list of eight legislative priorities is intended to influence the direction of the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature during its next session, which begins in January.
“The approach that they’re taking advocating for life in prison or the death penalty would set the pro-life movement backwards,” Texas Alliance for Life Executive Director Amy O’Donnell told the Current.
At last month’s Republican State Convention in Houston, delegates voted to include a clause on protecting the unborn as one of the priorities for the upcoming legislative session. The Texas Alliance for Life argues the priority, as written urges legislators to repeal three statutes that protect women from prosecution for obtaining an abortion in instances of criminal homicide, indecent assault and liability in wrongful death lawsuits.
O’Donnell maintains the language is the work of hardline group the Foundation to Abolish Abortion. She said the organization flew people in from around the country to sway delegates to support the call for criminal penalties for women getting abortions.
“They spent tens of thousands of dollars on marketing materials, on propaganda, and we were there to educate on why their method is bad news, why it’s never passed, and why it’s not the way to protect women,” O’Donnell said. “The Abolishing Abortion group has saved zero lives, has passed zero laws, and their agenda is to do exactly what they did at the grassroots level, to bring people in from across the nation to try and push their view through.”
Indeed, the Texas Alliance for Life attended the convention to counter those efforts, according to O’Donnell. She said she urged delegates to support the Texas Alliance for Life’s approach, which focuses on punishing abortion providers rather than women seeking the procedure.
Bradley Pierce, president of the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, rejects O’Donnell’s claims about his organization’s efforts to effect the outcome of the vote. He said dozens of the representatives from his organization who attended the convention were from Texas and only “three or four” came from out of state.
“We did not engage in any deceptive or dishonest tactics to sway delegates into supporting the simple notion that pre-born babies should receive equal protection of the laws,” Pierce said. “We won the debate fair and square. Anyone claiming otherwise is simply in denial about Texas conservatives supporting the abolition of abortion in our state.”
However, O’Donnell said many delegates still haven’t made up their minds on the issue.
“What we’re hearing from delegates both from the convention and after the convention is that this is an area that they are trying to understand more,” O’Donnell said. “The nuances of what repealing those statutes means is not something that the delegates understood as a large group at the convention.”
The language in the priorities list about protecting the unborn still requires review by Vergel Cruz, the secretary of the Texas Republican Party, before it becomes official.
The other seven other provisions in the state party’s list of legislative priorities range from outlawing Sharia law in the state to banning taxpayer-funded lobbying.
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