https://themilitant.com/2019/04/20/legislators-in-texas-push-to-make-every-abortion-illegal/
Legislators in Texas push to make every abortion illegal
By Brian Williams
Vol. 83/No. 17
April 29, 2019
The Texas state legislative Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee
held unprecedented public hearings April 8-9 on a proposed bill to
authorize criminal prosecution of all women who have an abortion and of
the doctors who perform them. All abortions would be outlawed, including
for rape, incest and the health of the woman.
While the bill failed to make it to the floor of the House, the
publicity given to it was hailed as making it a legitimate part of the
“debate” over abortion by anti-woman forces. It is the latest in a
series of attacks by capitalist politicians in a growing number of state
legislatures against family planning, including a woman’s right to
choose abortion.
The bill, called the Abolition of Abortion in Texas Act, would also
strike down an exception for abortion from the Texas penal code for
homicide. That would mean women and physicians could be prosecuted for
murder and subject to the death penalty.
The bill says state and local government officials should enforce the
legislation “regardless of any contrary federal law, executive order, or
court decision.”
Hundreds of people testified at the hearings over the course of the two
days, both opponents of women’s rights and those backing a woman’s right
to choose. “It was the first time in the state’s history,” the
Washington Post noted, “that public testimony had been heard on a
measure holding women criminally liable for their abortions.”
Republican state Rep. Tony Tinderholt, who sponsored the bill, told the
media that it would make people “consider the repercussions” of having
sex. Tinderholt had introduced the same legislation in 2017 but it had
been unceremoniously set aside without a hearing.
Even some who oppose women’s access to abortion expressed misgivings
over the criminal penalties that the bill would impose on women. Texas
state Rep. Jeff Leach, who allowed the hearing before the judiciary
committee to take place, said in a statement that while he’s “pro-life,”
this legislation was a step in the “wrong direction.” The anti-abortion
group Texans for Life also said it was against the bill.
The intent of legislators promoting it, and many other bills being
adopted that impose increasingly far-reaching restrictions on women’s
right to abortion, is to force a court fight to reach the U.S. Supreme
Court to attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized
abortion.
In Mississippi, for example, Gov. Phil Bryant signed a bill last month
that bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, often just six
weeks into pregnancy — when many women aren’t even aware they’re
pregnant. The Ohio Legislature approved a similar bill April 10. Similar
laws are being considered by legislators in Kentucky, Missouri,
Tennessee, West Virginia and Florida.
In Alabama, legislation was recently introduced to criminalize
performing all abortions, with the only exception being a threat to the
woman’s life.
These attacks have been made easier by the character of the Roe v. Wade
ruling. It “was based not on a woman’s right ‘to equal protection of the
laws’ guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, but on
medical criteria instead,” Jack Barnes, national secretary of the
Socialist Workers Party, wrote in The Clintons’ Anti-Working-Class
Record: Why Washington Fears Working People.
“During the first three months (‘trimester’), the court ruled, the
decision to terminate a pregnancy ‘must be left to the medical judgment
of a pregnant woman’s attending physician’ (not to the woman herself,
but to a doctor!).
“At the same time, the court allowed state governments to ban most
abortions after ‘viability,’ … something that medical advances
inevitably make earlier and earlier in pregnancy.”
The SWP supports a woman’s right to choose whether and when to have a
child, free from state interference, and calls for working people to
mobilize to defend clinics that offer women family planning, including
the right to safe and secure abortions.
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In This Issue
Front Page Articles •New England Stop & Shop workers strike against cuts
•Legislators in Texas push to make every abortion illegal
•Protesters in Sudan say: ‘The regime must fall!’
•SWP campaign builds May 1 actions, demands amnesty for all immigrants
•Fight against ban on Washington prisoners getting used books wins
•Cuban Revolution ‘put workers in the best position to take on racism’
Feature Articles •Today’s fighters can learn from Algeria’s 1962-65
revolution
Also In This Issue •Quebec protests hit gov’t ban on wearing religious
symbols on job
•‘Why do workers face so many problems today?’
•Quebec taxi, Uber drivers need union to fight boss, gov’t attacks
•66-year South Korean ban on abortion ruled unconstitutional
•Defend a woman’s right to abortion!
•Campaign to expand reach of ‘Militant,’ books, fund (week one)
On the Picket Line •Toronto teachers, students protest education cuts
•Autoworkers in Russia start ‘work to rule’ against layoffs
Books of the Month •New battalions of working-class fighters in
formation in China
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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