Texas Right To Life, the state's oldest and largest pro-life organization, identified five Republicans from the House of Representatives they believe should be voted out in the next election cycle because they "attempted to add exceptions to the Texas Heartbeat Act."
The five Texas House of Representatives, as per Texas Right To Life, are Lyle Larson of San Antonio, Stan Lambert of Abilene, Charlie Geren of Forth Worth, Geanie Morrison of Victoria, and Sam Harless of Spring who co-authored Texas House Bill 99.
This bill is said to be added as an exemption to the Texas Heartbeat Act which prohibits abortions to pregnancies six weeks and beyond after a fetal heartbeat has been detected. HB99 allows an abortion to be undertaken on a woman who suffered sexual assault and incest even after a fetal heartbeat has been detected. It is identical to Texas Senate Bill 44 authored by Senator Jose Menendez.
"Shockingly, five self-proclaiming 'Pro-Life' Republicans filed legislation in Fall 2021 displaying their disagreement with ending all legal abortion. This group of legislators publicly demonstrated their belief that some preborn children do not deserve the Right to Life-even after the baby's heartbeat is detected!" Texas Right To Life said.
"We encourage each of you to stand with us in the fight for Life. Next election cycle, remember the anti-Life Republicans who stood against the defense of the preborn and called for women's pain to be multiplied in horrifically difficult times. Rep. Larson has thankfully already announced he will not be running for HD 122 again, but we must vote out the other frauds. Texas needs legislators who will advocate for all innocent human Life, without exceptions," the pro-life organization added.
Texas Right To Life clarified that they are not condoning violence against women brought about by rape and incest but do not want the unborn to suffer the consequences of such an "injustice." They raised hopes that the Texas legislature could enact laws that would legislatively and culturally "ensure perpetrators of this violence are held fully accountable and that potential victims are protected."
In addition, the organization revealed that encouraging abortion adds another injustice and further traumatizes the mother. Abortion, they stressed, does not end the violence but only doubles it for the mother and for the child:
"Encouraging the death of an innocent baby for the crimes of a calloused criminal only multiplies the injustice which has already been committed. We should undoubtedly support women in these extremely difficult circumstances. But we must not look at a woman in her trauma and suggest she increase the trauma of rape or incest by adding the willful participation in her own child's demise as some sort of solution."
"Ending the preborn child's life will not undo the violence the mother should have never endured. Instead, abortion only multiplies the violence by adding an entirely new victim to the heartbreaking offense."
In line with the next election cycle, Texas Right To Life released a Pro-Life Scorecard that details how Texas state representatives performed in the 87th Texas Legislature to serve the unborn, pregnant mothers, and "vulnerable patients." The scorecard's objective is to give an objective appraisal of the legislators' actions, especially in "authoring and co-authoring Pro-Life Priority Bills and amendments, and public statements on Pro-Life policies."
