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| Kyleen introduces lawmakers at Monday's Stand4Life Rally |
It's a Wrap! 84th Legislative Session Winds to a Close After Multiple Life Wins Building on a landmark session from two years ago, pro-life advocates continued to achieve even greater successes in the 84th Texas Legislature in protecting and preserving life. Some of the highlights included:
- Further eroding of funds to Planned Parenthood as a state grant recipients;
- Increased funding by more than a third to abortion alternative providers to $18 million over the biennium;
- Securing judicial bypass reform that closes many of the loopholes for minors to get abortions without parental involvement;
- Breaking a decade-long impasse to reform end-of-life care laws to require provision of food and water to critically ill patients at the end of life.
Unfortunately, a proposal to exclude abortion coverage in state and federal insurance programs stalled in the waning moments of the session, largely because of a high-stakes game of chicken in which one stakeholder insisted on all or nothing-and so we got nothing. An incremental approach toward removing abortion funding has worked well in Texas in recent years, and attacking the funding of abortion services in taxpayer-supported insurance programs is a worthwhile goal and popular with legislators. However, the idea of prohibiting private individuals from using their own private funds is an unvetted approach that raised questions from lawmakers and their constituents in the waning days of the session. Unfortunately one group in particular was unyielding in trying to force the provision onto the bill and was unwilling to compromise. Demanding the problematic provision ended up dooming the entire bill. Instead of accomplishing legislation that could be passed to save lives, they let the perfect become the enemy of the good. We remain grateful to the many pro-life members in the House who worked to pass SB 575, including Representative Dr. Marsha Farney, Chairmen Cook, Geren, Hunter
and
Keffer, and we especially thank
Chairman Tan Parker who went above and beyond the call to ensure passage of this bill.
The Recap:
HB 3994 Judicial Bypass Reform by Rep. Geanie Morrison
HB 417 Requiring Abortion Clinics to complete training to recognize & help sex trafficking victims by Rep. Debbie Riddle
HB 3774 Providing for information to parents whose unborn child has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome, stipulating that they not refer for abortion, and limiting wrongful birth claims.
HB 177 promoting life-saving adult stem cell treatments
by Rep. Bill Zedler
HB 3074 protecting the provision of artificially administered food & water for critically ill patients
Two Budget Riders: One kicking Planned Parenthood out of the schools and another prioritizing abstinence grant money for truly abstinence-promoting programs.
Planned Parenthood was also booted to the rear, losing over a million dollars more in funding from the Breast & Cervical Cancer Screening programs, and the budget for
Alternatives to Abortions (provides grants to adoption agencies and pregnancy help centers) was increased to $18M.
All in all, another great session for pro-lifers and the moms and babies we seek to help!
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