Under the Texas Dismemberment Abortion Ban, abortionists are prohibited from killing preborn children by tearing them apart limb from limb. Without the Dismemberment Abortion Ban, animals dissected in labs have more rights than preborn children. Pro-Life activists like you urged the Texas Legislature in 2017 to pass the Dismemberment Abortion Ban as part of Senate Bill 8 (SB 8). Shortly before the law took effect, however, the abortion industry sued.
A district judge and a three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the Pro-Life policy, but now Texas is asking the full Fifth Circuit to consider the case so we can enforce the life-saving law. Today, the full Fifth Circuit heard oral arguments in Texas’s Dismemberment Abortion Ban.
If the court upholds this important law, Texas could set legal precedent affirming the rights of preborn children and directly undermine many of the Supreme Court’s previous arguments on abortion policies.
Attorneys for the state asserted Texas’s strong state interest in protecting preborn children from such a barbaric and inhumane method of abortion. Texas brilliantly argued:
“It’s illegal to kill an animal in Texas by ripping it limb from limb. SB 8 extends this same protection to pain-capable children on the cusp of viability.”
Conversely, attorneys for the abortion industry asserted that this extension of basic human decency to preborn children is a “medically unnecessary risk” and amounts to an unacceptable undue burden on the “constitutional right to abortion” without advancing a state interest in protecting preborn children. When pressed, the attorney for the abortion industry could not satisfactorily answer why the ban on tearing living preborn babies limb from limb would not further a substantial state interest in protecting Life.
Judge Jennifer Elrod correctly observed that even frogs dissected in high school biology classrooms receive the basic protection of a humane death before dismemberment. As she pointed out:
“It’s a matter of not taking living creatures and tearing them apart limb by limb. It’s sort of like drawing and quartering — we don’t do that anymore, do we?”
The court has not yet issued a ruling, but as a conservative stronghold, the judges will likely vote to uphold the Dismemberment Abortion Ban. This precedent could affect the entire nation if the abortion industry appeals to the Supreme Court of the United States. Because other circuit courts have blocked other states’ Dismemberment Abortion Bans, the Supreme Court must intervene to resolve the conflicting rulings.
Abortion was first legalized nationwide through a court case out of Texas: Roe v. Wade. Now, Texans are determined to defeat Roe through the courts. Bold legislation like the Dismemberment Abortion Ban is how we’ll save lives from abortion, change the culture to see the humanity of the preborn child, and compel the court to overturn Roe. The Texas Legislature in 2021 should pursue additional life-saving legislation like the Texas Abolition Strategy. Our preborn neighbors and their mothers deserve nothing less. Texans should urge their state lawmakers to support 2021 Pro-Life Priorities this session here.