Texas Scores a Victory for Life
Abortions in Texas have practically stopped. Since the beginning of this month, Planned Parenthood is not doing abortions under the new Texas Heartbeat Act.
It is a rare victory for pro-life supporters in a pro-abortion culture. But it’s merely a temporary win in one battle within a fierce and deadly war.
This law—passed by the Texas legislature on March 11, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott on May 19, and in effect as of September 1—outlaws abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, when the unborn child’s heartbeat is first strong enough to be detected.
Abortion advocates are furious. And their outrage not only reveals something important about them, it explains many of the other afflictions America is suffering right now.
It is an unusual law: It is written so that it cannot be enforced by the government through criminal or civil enforcement. Instead, it grants private citizens the standing to sue abortionists, insurance companies and those associated with the abortion, except for the mother. Damages are $10,000 plus, in some cases, court costs.
This is an odd technical mechanism that not only makes abortions far costlier financially, but it also prevents people from suing the state of Texas. Leftists derisively characterize it as a “vigilante” system that puts “bounties” on innocents. They forget that leftists have used this same type of legal enforcement mechanism for years. Perhaps the structure of this law reflects a certain desperation—in a pro-abortion world where the Supreme Court has pushed abortion as a “constitutional right” for almost 50 years—for any means to slow the killing.
Abortionists are challenging the law in Texas courts, and last week, Joe Biden’s Department of Justice challenged it at the United States Supreme Court, claiming that it was unconstitutional. The court declined to immediately suspend the law, but said it is open to hearing a case. Vox reported on this as “a terrifying sign about the future of the rule of law.” Yes, as long as the law permits abortions, leftists are deeply committed to the rule of law. The moment it limits them, they gleefully trash it.
The American Constitution Society melodramatically accused Texas Republicans of trying “to undercut our democracy.” It said the Supreme Court “effectively overturned Roe v. Wade overnight.” In truth, the Heartbeat Act is not a return to pre-Roe. Before that notorious 1973 Supreme Court decision, Texas and many other states originally classified abortion as a criminal offense unless necessary to save the mother’s life. This law permits abortions before the baby’s heartbeat is detected, and even after if a physician says the mother is in a medical emergency requiring abortion, and any time that prohibiting it results in an “undue burden” on the woman.
Still, pro-abortionists say Texas is dragging America back to the Dark Ages. They are calling for a boycott on Texas businesses. Ride-share company Uber said it would pay legal fees for drivers who break the new law. Its competitor, Lyft, said it would do the same and also donated $1 million to Planned Parenthood. The software company Salesforce told its thousands of employees that it would be willing to help them relocate out of Texas. Portland, Oregon, is boycotting the state.
If restricting abortion is regressive, America is still a far cry from the Dark Ages. Abortion is phenomenally prevalent. Truly accurate numbers are elusive, since those who commit abortions are not required to report them, and some states refuse to provide such information. Yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claims that for every 1,000 live births, there are 186 abortions. The Guttmacher Institute says the number of unborn babies killed in the U.S. in 2017 was around 862,320. Another such death occurs, on average, every 37 seconds, around the clock.
These are staggering numbers. Of course, you’ll never see abortion trackers night after night on your evening news. The official death toll from covid-19—nearly 662,000 over the last 20 months—has been emphasized over and again ad nauseum in order to justify demands for all kinds of social, economic and medical impositions. With abortion, it’s My body, my choice! The government has no right to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body! Yet most of these same people now vehemently insist that the government has every right to rob you of choice and demand that you inject your body with a vaccine (while they conceal and suppress evidence of its ineffectiveness and risks).
Since Roe v. Wade, abortion mills in America have killed well over 62 million unborn boys and girls. That’s more victims than Mao, Stalin or Hitler murdered.
And these numbers include only surgical and medical abortions, not chemical abortions (abortifacients). As the American Life League emphasizes, these kill an estimated 14 million additional conceived children in embryo every year.
This holocaust has been going on for half a century. Efforts to prevent it or slow it have been mostly unsuccessful. Now Texas isn’t even trying to outlaw the practice completely. It is simply saying, If you can hear a heart beating, let’s not kill it.
And it’s sending leftists into a rage. Their lifestyle and agenda are at stake. Championing promiscuous sex and abortion-as-birth-control is at stake. They’re desperate to stamp out Texas’s efforts to protect life.
Also, a lot of money is at stake. Just as pharmaceutical leaders are making shiploads of cash and are friends with the politicians mandating use of their vaccines, abortion leaders make huge profits off of abortions—and are in bed with politicians who euphemistically call themselves “pro-choice.” Planned Parenthood—America’s abortion leader at around 6,800 abortions a week—brings in $1.6 billion a year. Nearly a quarter of that is government money. American taxpayers, no matter how opposed they are to it, are paying for abortions.
America has a pro-abortion culture. This is what happens when we come to believe that human life is nothing but atoms colliding with atoms. This is what happens when we reject God and we reject the revelation that God made us in His own image. This is what happens when we spurn God’s laws of right and wrong, and we are ignorant of God’s purpose for our lives. We are left with people disdainfully boycotting a state that tries to constrain the practice of killing babies.
Read “Is Abortion Really Murder?”
We are the generation that the Apostle Paul prophesied in 2 Timothy 3:1-4: “[I]n the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves [selfish, self-centered] … disobedient to parents … Without natural affection … incontinent [without self-control], fierce [brutal] … lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.”
Can you recognize today’s America? Our pro-abortion culture can’t even stand two weeks of restricted abortion access in one state.
This outrages the Creator of human life. He is correcting us for our sins. Few would make the connection—and many would contemptuously ridicule anyone who would—but the reality is that curses like sick leadership, class divisions, racial hostility, weather disasters, broken pride in our national power, our strength being spent in vain, and our international reputation gutted are besieging America for precisely such grievous sins as this. And our correction will, deservedly, grow more severe as we continue to reject it.
If you want to better understand why God is so intent on preserving and protecting human life, read “The Inspiring Truth Abortionists Should Know.”