RINO legislator says disabled preborn babies should be "dealt with"

By April 27 of this 84^th Session of the Texas Legislature, which began on January 13^th and will end on June 1^st:

• the Texas State Senate had passed 378 bills;

• the Texas State House had passed 314 bills; but

• neither chamber had passed ONE Pro-Life bill!

REPEAT: Not ONE Pro-Life bill has been passed by either chamber—despite overwhelming Republican Pro-Life majorities in both the State Senate and the State House.

In fact, a battle erupted on Thursday, April 23 when two Pro-Life amendments inspired a protracted fight on the House floor involving heated debate, points of order, and the pulling down of the entire bill (House Bill 2510).

Representative Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler) passionately defended his amendments to protect life.  One amendment would have simply required abortion statistics to be reported as meticulously as are required of abortion clinics in the city of New York.  NEW YORK CITY has stronger abortion reporting requirements than Texas, and still, Representative Schaefer faced opposition to mere data collection.

More sickening was the debate on killing unborn children with fetal abnormalities.  In another amendment, Representative Schaefer moved to close this barbaric language from current law so that unborn children who are suspected to be ill or disabled are not subjected to abortion.  Texas law currently does not protect these babies, and Representative Schaefer and Texas Right to Life find this offensive.

Republican In Name Only (RINO) JD Sheffield (R-Gatesville/Stephenville) joined the Democrat party leadership arguing for the right to abort babies with fetal abnormalities who are past the 5-month development mark in the womb.  Those are big, fully formed unborn babies!

As one who announced that he has delivered hundreds of babies, Sheffield angrily claimed parents should be able to kill some babies who just aren’t perfect who won’t live for very long anyway…and “have to be dealt with.”

“DEALT WITH?”  These are children, the most vulnerable among us—and they have to be “dealt with?”

Texas Right to Life has a full team in Austin for every day of the 20-week 84^TH Texas Legislative Session, and only 5 weeks remain.

We don’t enjoy the ideological fights on unrelated bills, but we have no choice to pass policy through amendments on such bills because Republican Senate and House committee chairs are stalling the real, free-standing Pro-Life bills.

We have few options remaining to protect the 120,000 unborn Texans who will die in abortion clinics before the next legislative session starts in 2017.  We cannot walk away from their silent cries—especially the ones who are rendered less than perfect—because of political games.

Last week’s hostility demonstrates a painful example of why the Republican-led Texas Legislature has not passed one substantial Pro-Life bill through the regular process of a regular session of the Legislature since 2003.  (Both the 2011 Sonogram Law and the 2013 HB 2 passed because Governor Perry granted these measures status that cleared procedural hurdles, rendering these bills immune from games and stall tactics.)

RINOs like JD Sheffield must be stopped.

Fight the Establishment, while we still can.