Friend,
You’ve probably heard about the Texas Heartbeat Bill by now and you know that it’s making pro-abortion forces lose their minds!
But there is much more you may NOT yet know.
Because of the critical importance of this life-and-death issue, and because we who love the right to life have been fighting—and overall losing—this battle for over 48 years, you need to know the whole truth, so that way we don’t end up doomed to repeat some really bad and bloody history.
You deserve to be fully informed about what’s REALLY going on with the Heartbeat Bill—the good, the bad, and the ugly.
If you prefer listening or watching check out the YouTube version of this blog, everyone else read on.
Before getting to the real facts about the bill itself, let’s address what the Supreme Court actually did and, more significantly, what it DID NOT do last week because there is a lot of misinformation and exaggerated claims being made by many.
To cut to the chase, the U.S. Supreme Court did NOT overturn Roe v. Wade, nor did it do anything even close to that.
It was a purely procedural ruling and had nothing to do with a “woman’s right to choose” or Roe or even abortion at all.
As the Supreme Court itself said, “[T]his order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts.” [1]
In other words, they were telling those who brought the suit that they just did it in the wrong way, and that they needed to go back and try again.
Frankly, this doesn’t even give us much of a clue whether they would overturn Roe.
The pro-abortion forces pulling the media strings are merely playing it up for all it’s worth in order to fuel the rage of their supporters, raise millions of dollars, and bolster their threats of court packing.
On top of that, as the Supreme Court itself had just foreshadowed in its ruling, two days later a Texas judge actually did issue an order stopping a Texas Pro-Life organization and many others from suing to enforce the Texas Heartbeat Act for now. [2]
And since the bill can only be enforced by private citizens, as I’ll explain further below, rulings like that one mean that the Heartbeat Bill IS being blocked by judges, regardless of what you hear on the news.
Okay, that’s probably WAY more judicial inside-baseball than you had bargained for when you opened this blog, but I hope that helps you understand what’s really going on.
The most important takeaway from all that is that WE CANNOT REST because the job is not done, and the job will not be done until abortion is completely and totally abolished by providing equal protection of the laws to every single preborn child in Texas!
But that’s not all.
You also need to know that the Heartbeat Bill is actually REALLY BAD.
We told the legislature that when they were considering it. [3]
But the Heartbeat Bill was a substitute play that was made by politicians who opposed our bill that would have ACTUALLY abolished abortion.
Here are the basics of what the Heartbeat Bill actually says:
- Before performing an abortion, an abortionist is generally required to perform a test to try to detect the baby’s heartbeat, if any. [4]
- The abortionist is then required to write down in the medical record whether the abortionist detects a heartbeat or not. The abortionist is not required to video or audio record the test. [5]
- If the abortionist detects a heartbeat or does not do the test, but still performs the abortion, the abortionist may be sued for $10,000 for murdering the child unless there was a medical emergency threatening the life or major bodily function of the mother. [6]
- The bill does not make abortion a crime. In fact, the bill specifically says that the government cannot prosecute the abortionist. Instead, the bill requires private citizens like you and me to file a lawsuit against abortionists in order to enforce it. [7]
- The mother who voluntarily solicited and hired the abortionist may not be sued or held legally accountable in any way. [8]
There are a number of problems here.
First, look at who is the one who is being trusted to perform the heartbeat test: THE ABORTIONIST—the physician performing the abortion—the person who makes money from murdering babies.
Second, look at who is the one who is being trusted to accurately document the results of the test: THE ABORTIONIST—the person who has every reason to lie about the test results.
That is the only documented evidence of whether a heartbeat was seen or heard before the abortion took place. No one is required to video or audio record the test to see or hear whether there was a heartbeat. We have to take the word of those who were parties to the abortion.
Next, the “fine” for committing the abortion is. . .
. . .$10,000. . .
That’s. It. . .
. . .for taking money to brutally butcher a precious, living, legally innocent, vulnerable human who is being fearfully and wonderfully knit together by God in His very own image in the same place that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ chose to make His entry into this world–His mother’s womb.
$10k.
That sickens me.
I don’t think we should celebrate that.
I think we should be ashamed of putting a pitiful price like that on someone so priceless.
Fourth, the bill explicitly abdicates the role of civil government to provide justice to victims of homicide.
Romans 13 in the Bible says that governing authorities do not bear the sword in vain.
But the Texas Heartbeat Act could be subtitled the “Bear the Sword in Vain Act,” because it leaves it to you and me as citizens to enforce it because the government is REFUSING TO DO ITS DUTY.
Remember those people you elected to enforce the law?
They’ve just passed the buck on THE BIGGEST God-given duty of civil government—the legal protection of innocent human life.
Next, the bill explicitly exempts from the $10k penalty a parent who voluntarily, under no duress, solicits and hires the abortionist to murder their own child.
The bill gives them complete immunity and a license to kill.
The rate of chemical “self-managed” (i.e. unassisted) abortions has already been climbing.
That means that, even if the bill actually did deter some abortionists from performing abortions, it merely pushes mothers even more towards do-it-yourself abortions.
The bill doesn’t outlaw those at all. In fact, this bill did nothing to change our current Texas law that allows a mother to abort her own child up until the moment of birth, as long as she does it herself.
The bill even implicitly approves of it by explicitly giving her a free pass.
So a mother who murders her born child is subject to our justice system, but a mother who murders her child before birth is not.
That’s not only discriminatory and immoral, it’s unconstitutional.
But we’re not done.
The bill actually provides an affirmative defense to an abortionist who can demonstrate, among other things, that being sued will create an undue burden on a woman seeking an abortion, at least until “the United States Supreme Court overrules Roe v. Wade. . . or Planned Parenthood v. Casey.” [9]
What does that mean? Does that mean what it sounds like?
Yes, this and related provisions essentially mean that the Texas Heartbeat Bill is simply the latest in a long line of bills by Pro-Life politicians bowing down to judicial supremacy and legitimizing Roe v. Wade.
As conservative legal scholar Josh Blackman put it:
“If a Texan actually sued Planned Parenthood for performing a seven-week abortion, the judge would have to dismiss that suit. After all, [the Heartbeat Bill] expressly stipulates that citizens’ suits must comply with Roe v. Wade.” [10]
Seriously.
Okay, I believe it is important for every American to understand the information I just shared with you.
And though I could go on, I’m going to stop with all the bad news.
Because I want to tell you something else before you stop reading.
I hope that citizens do sue to enforce the Heartbeat Bill.
Our politicians should have never passed it instead of the Abolition of Abortion in Texas Act, but they did.
So I hope it gets enforced.
And if the federal courts try to strike it down, our state courts should IGNORE ROE and enforce it anyways.
I do not believe that Christians should ever call for or support legislation that concedes fundamental God-given principles like the Heartbeat Bill does, but once it is passed, I believe we should enforce it unless doing so would create further injustice.
But let me conclude with two messages that are much more important.
First. . .
GOD IS ON HIS THRONE.
If He chooses to use this Heartbeat Bill to save lives, praise God.
If He chooses to use this Heartbeat Bill to upend judicial tyranny, praise God.
I’m personally doubtful that it will do much of those things (and reports from witnesses at the abortion clinics seem grim), but I hope and pray it does save as many as possible.
When people violate God’s law, He still means it for good.
And when others do evil that good may come, God uses that for good too.
God is always at work, even in spite of our failures.
The second thing is this:
The same number of votes it took to pass the Texas Heartbeat Bill would have also been enough votes to pass the Abolition of Abortion in Texas Act to truly abolish abortion in Texas.
We need to let our elected officials know how we feel about the Heartbeat Bill.
And we must let them know before the next election that we will accept nothing less than their loud public support for the Abolition of Abortion in Texas Act. . .
. . . or else we will be hoping, praying, AND WORKING for their defeat in the upcoming primary by someone who WILL publicly pledge to support equal protection for all preborn humans without compromise.
We must take our knowledge and convert it into action. Friend, we need more people in this fight who truly want to see abortion abolished completely in Texas!
Please share this blog to everyone you know who wants the brutal practice of murdering the preborn to be ENDED in Texas FOR GOOD! Share the video of this information on your favorite social network.
Invite your friends to join us in the fight as we work to keep you equipped to understand what is really going on in the fight for equal protection for ALL Texans!
For the sake of our preborn neighbor,
Bradley Pierce
Executive Director
Abolish Abortion Texas
P.S. The important thing to remember is that the Texas Heartbeat Act is a replacement bill that our legislators passed INSTEAD of the Abolish Abortion in Texas Act which would have honored God and the Constitution by completely abolishing legal abortion in Texas, and would have given preborn babies equal protection under our laws.
Think about that friend! The Heartbeat Act doesn’t even begin to establish equal justice for preborn human beings. It continues to bow to the evil Roe v. Wade decision and ignore the duty the state of Texas has before God and under the Constitution to equally protect all human beings born and preborn. Don’t forget to invite others to join the fight today!
——
[1] Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, No. 21A24, 2021 U.S. LEXIS 3680, at *2 (Sep. 1, 2021) (https://www.supremecourt.gov/
[3] https://www.scribd.com/docume
[4] S.B. No. 8 the “Texas Heartbeat Act” — Page 3, lines 10-14.
[5] Page 3, line 22 through page 4, line 1.
[6] Page 4, line 2 through page 5, line 3; page 6, line 8 through page 7, line 6. See also Tex. Health & Safety Code § 171.002 (“’Medical emergency’ means a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that, as certified by a physician, places the woman in danger of death or a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless an abortion is performed”).
[7] Page 5, line 18 through page 6, line 22.
[8] Page 5, lines 7-11.
[9] Page 9, line 17 through page 11, line 11.
[10] The Supreme Court Could Not ‘Block’ Texas’ Fetal Heartbeat Law, https://www.newsweek.com/supr