Comments from the Molech Today entry of this blog, first from Dr. Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life and then from me...
Joe Pojman, Ph.D. said...
Dan,
We very much appreciate your passionate opposition to the destruction of innocent human lives through abortion. All of us at Texas Alliance for Life share that passion. That passion is what drives us each and every day. We believe that everyone has a moral obligation to oppose abortion, through legislation and through compassionate alternatives to abortion.
The simple reality is that the US Supreme Court prevents states and the Congress from banning abortion. That is the tragic reality. You may be unaware that Louisiana banned abortion in 1992. The federal courts ruled that the ban is unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade. The ban has never been enforced and cannot be enforced unless Roe v. Wade is overturned.
Any kind of ban on abortion, including a ban stemming from a "personhood" law, will suffer the same result. That's not what we want, but that is the legal reality.
To ignore the legal reality of Roe v. Wade is a bit like ignoring the reality of gravity. To pass a law that bans abortion while ignoring the reality of the US Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade is like driving a bus full of children off a cliff while pretending that gravity does not exist. Both actions will predictably result in tragedy. That is not our preference, but it is the undeniable reality.
Anytime a pro-life law is struck down under Roe v. Wade, Roe is further strengthened, and that makes Roe harder to overturn. That is a huge price to pay.
Here is an excellent article in Human Life Review that outlines the problems with the type of personhood law that you seem to advocate. I strongly recommend a thorough reading of this article:
http://www.humanlifereview.com/2009_fall/Linton.pdf
The author, Mr. Paul Linton, is a highly respected pro-life constitutional expert. I would very much like to continue this dialogue, but I would like to direct the discussion to Mr. Linton's article.
Finally, to answer the very important question about how to overturn Roe v. Wade, I point out that we need at least five of the nine justices. We need to elect a pro-life president who will appoint at least one more justice who recognizes that Roe v. Wade is a very bad decision and is willing to overrule it. It takes at least five votes, and it appears that we have four.
Joe Pojman, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Texas Alliance for Life
May 29, 2010 8:04 AM
Dan Hawkins said...
Dr. Pojman, thank you for your response. Mr. Linton makes some good points, but there are things in his article with which I strongly disagree. Linton, like so many other people over the last 37 years, abdicates so much power over to the United States Supreme Court, power that was never given to it by the Consitution, the "supreme law of the land." Linton correctly asserts "that the legislature makes the laws, the judiciary interprets them, and the executive enforces them." But what of the Constitution itself? It gives no authority to the judiciary for intepreting the document that created that judiciary. Indeed, all of Linton's citations of the Supreme Court's power to interpret the Constitution come from statements made by the Supreme Court itself. The Court took this power and just made it its own.
Thomas Jefferson once said that the States were not united by a submission to some powerful central government, but "by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States." He went on to say that "The government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution the measure of its powers…" (Kentucky Resolutions of 1798).
The tragedy of Roe v. Wade is that it has been given the same weight as a Constitutional Amendment when it shouldn't be. The Founding Fathers made amending the Constitution very difficult, and with good reason. The Court has given to itself the power to basically rewrite the Constitution faster than the States can legally amend it, and we are seeing the result of this now with rapidly expanding federal power and record spending and entitlements.
The Supreme Court is a body that has repeatedly ruled that certain living human beings can be treated as property (Dred Scot, Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bolton, etc.) and can either be bought and sold or killed at will by certain parties. It is time to stand up to the Supreme Court and put a check and balance on this power that it has siezed for itself.
Personhood is a movement to recognize that unborn children are living human beings with the God-given, unalienable right to life and liberty. It is also a challenge to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Abortion is today what slavery was in the early nineteenth century. It took States' secession and a Civil War to end slavery, and, while those States that did secede did so for the wrong reasons in the 1800s, it make take state secession to end abortion. But the battle right now is for full personhood in Texas. Once we get that realized, it will be up to the Supreme Court to decide on whatever challenges are made to it (challenges, by the way, that will be made based on the Supreme Court's own horrendous and illegal decisions of the past). If it rules as it has previously, then I will devote all my energy to the secession of Texas from the United States of America.
The movie "The Untouchables" presents a fictionalized account of the war between government officials and the Al Capone gang. There is a scene in which Sean Connery's character, dying from multiple gunshot wounds, gives a very important piece of information to Elliot Ness (played by Kevin Costner). Connery's character, with his last bit of strength, grabs Ness's collars and says, "What are you prepared to do!?" Dr. Pojman, we are in a war against forces that, every day, commit the most atrocious acts of violence against the most defenseless of human beings. What are we prepared to do?
And an addendum by yours truly....
And just to clarify for the record, I am not in favor of Texas secession for the sake of secession. It should be used only as a last resort to bring the federal government back to what the Constitution first envisioned. We need to make this fight about the children who are being murdered. To do that, we need to take on the ones who are enabling this murder. This includes the Supreme Court and the other branches of government who have abdicated so much authority to it.
This is the most serious issue of our time, and we cannot continue to sit back and continue doing the same things we have been doing for the past 37 years. You say that we "need to elect a pro-life president who will appoint at least one more justice who recognizes that Roe v. Wade is a very bad decision and is willing to overrule it." Well, we have had two years of Ford; eight years of Reagan, four years of Bush I, and eight years of Bush II. When Obama's term began, seven of the nine Supreme Court justices had been nominated by supposedly pro-life Republican presidents. If we really care about the genocide that we have been allowing for the past 37 years, we simply cannot be passive any more.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Texas Alliance for Life
I posted a link to the May 24th entry of this blog on the Texas Alliance for Life Facebook page, and they responded via a comment to that post:
We are proud that Texas has one of the strongest "personhood" laws in the nation, the Prenatal Protection Act. Our personhood law recognizes the unborn child as a person "at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth."
The law protects unborn babies from homicide, assault, and intoxication manslaughter. Because of our law, killing an unborn child in Texas is capital murder because the person murdered (the unborn child) is less than six years of age. Numerous criminals have been convicted in Texas under the Prenatal Protection Act, and several are servicing life sentences.
In addition to protecting unborn children and their mothers, this law reinforces the principle that unborn children are babies. It is a significant foothold in scaling the wall to someday overturn Roe v. Wade. And when that wonderful day comes, the Texas Prenatal Protection Act may well protect unborn babies from abortion as well.
I posted the following comment in response this morning:
But what is the plan for overturning Roe v. Wade? It has been around for 37 years, and it is no more closer to being overturned than it was in 1973. Meanwhile, fifty million babies have been murdered. Just to help illustrate how many that is, I will spell it out: 50,000,000. How many more will die while we are waiting to start "scaling the wall to someday overturn Roe v. Wade?" We need to start scaling now. We cannot and should not worry about the makeup of the Supreme Court since it usually takes years to get a case that high anyway.
The law that Roe v. Wade overturned was a Texas law that made procuring an abortion a crime. That law said nothing about any rights that preborn children might or might not have. The Roe v. Wade court opinion even stated that "If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment." It went on to say that, "no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment." The Prenatal Protection Act established this personhood of the unborn child, so, according to the both the Fourteenth Amendment AND Roe v. Wade, Texas MUST protect the right to life of preborn children. The combination of Tex. Penal Code §19.06 (which unfortunately was created by the Prenatal Protection Act) and the regulations on abortion in the Heath & Safety and Family Codes serve to keep abortion legal when doing so is clearly unconstitutional when the Penal Code definition of individual is taken into account.
Take a moment to really think about the current state of Texas law: The Texas Penal Code has a specific definition for an individual. If the State can exclude a certain group that clearly falls under that definition from the protection against certain forms of homicide (the preborn and abortion), what is keeping the State from excluding other groups from the protection against any form of homicide?
This November, the voters of Colorado will vote on an amendment to their state constitution that would give full personhood status to preborn children. The voters of Mississippi will vote on a similar amendment to their constitution in 2011. It is my prayer that these referendums will be passed by the voters, but they face very well-funded opposition by pro-abortion activists. Roe v. Wade was a case that originated in Texas. I think that the end of Roe v. Wade should also originate in Texas. But to do that, the pro-life movement cannot be passive. We cannot be paralyzed by fear. We must do what we know is right and what will really protect the right to life of all human beings, even if that means calling for the repeal of all of the so-called pro-life regulations that we have worked so hard for in the past. What these pro-life regulations do now is help keep abortion legal since they all end with some form of "...and then you can kill the baby."
Your Facebook comment of March 1 (specified in my blog at http://texaspersonhood.blogspot.com/2010/05/pro-life-and-personhood.html) indicated that you are operating out of the fear of what some future United States Supreme Court might rule in some future case regarding personhood. When I saw that post, I was reminded of the story of Biblical story Joshua and Caleb. Moses sent spies into the promised land. When the spies came back, all but Joshua and Caleb said that the land was occupied by giants and large, fortified cities and that the Israelites would not be able to defeat them. Joshua and Caleb reported that, with God, the Israelites could defeat whoever occupied the land. Texas Alliance for Life is acting like the other spies when you should be acting as Joshua and Caleb. In fact, the Bible is full of admonitions to "FEAR NOT." Let me just remind you that, in this fight for the right to life of preborn children, we are most definitely on God's side. And since we are on God's side, we should not operate under fear, but we should loudly and boldly proclaim that the God-given right to life applies to all human beings!
I am thankful that Texas Alliance for Life has responded and that a dialogue has begun.
We are proud that Texas has one of the strongest "personhood" laws in the nation, the Prenatal Protection Act. Our personhood law recognizes the unborn child as a person "at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth."
The law protects unborn babies from homicide, assault, and intoxication manslaughter. Because of our law, killing an unborn child in Texas is capital murder because the person murdered (the unborn child) is less than six years of age. Numerous criminals have been convicted in Texas under the Prenatal Protection Act, and several are servicing life sentences.
In addition to protecting unborn children and their mothers, this law reinforces the principle that unborn children are babies. It is a significant foothold in scaling the wall to someday overturn Roe v. Wade. And when that wonderful day comes, the Texas Prenatal Protection Act may well protect unborn babies from abortion as well.
I posted the following comment in response this morning:
But what is the plan for overturning Roe v. Wade? It has been around for 37 years, and it is no more closer to being overturned than it was in 1973. Meanwhile, fifty million babies have been murdered. Just to help illustrate how many that is, I will spell it out: 50,000,000. How many more will die while we are waiting to start "scaling the wall to someday overturn Roe v. Wade?" We need to start scaling now. We cannot and should not worry about the makeup of the Supreme Court since it usually takes years to get a case that high anyway.
The law that Roe v. Wade overturned was a Texas law that made procuring an abortion a crime. That law said nothing about any rights that preborn children might or might not have. The Roe v. Wade court opinion even stated that "If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment." It went on to say that, "no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment." The Prenatal Protection Act established this personhood of the unborn child, so, according to the both the Fourteenth Amendment AND Roe v. Wade, Texas MUST protect the right to life of preborn children. The combination of Tex. Penal Code §19.06 (which unfortunately was created by the Prenatal Protection Act) and the regulations on abortion in the Heath & Safety and Family Codes serve to keep abortion legal when doing so is clearly unconstitutional when the Penal Code definition of individual is taken into account.
Take a moment to really think about the current state of Texas law: The Texas Penal Code has a specific definition for an individual. If the State can exclude a certain group that clearly falls under that definition from the protection against certain forms of homicide (the preborn and abortion), what is keeping the State from excluding other groups from the protection against any form of homicide?
This November, the voters of Colorado will vote on an amendment to their state constitution that would give full personhood status to preborn children. The voters of Mississippi will vote on a similar amendment to their constitution in 2011. It is my prayer that these referendums will be passed by the voters, but they face very well-funded opposition by pro-abortion activists. Roe v. Wade was a case that originated in Texas. I think that the end of Roe v. Wade should also originate in Texas. But to do that, the pro-life movement cannot be passive. We cannot be paralyzed by fear. We must do what we know is right and what will really protect the right to life of all human beings, even if that means calling for the repeal of all of the so-called pro-life regulations that we have worked so hard for in the past. What these pro-life regulations do now is help keep abortion legal since they all end with some form of "...and then you can kill the baby."
Your Facebook comment of March 1 (specified in my blog at http://texaspersonhood.blogspot.com/2010/05/pro-life-and-personhood.html) indicated that you are operating out of the fear of what some future United States Supreme Court might rule in some future case regarding personhood. When I saw that post, I was reminded of the story of Biblical story Joshua and Caleb. Moses sent spies into the promised land. When the spies came back, all but Joshua and Caleb said that the land was occupied by giants and large, fortified cities and that the Israelites would not be able to defeat them. Joshua and Caleb reported that, with God, the Israelites could defeat whoever occupied the land. Texas Alliance for Life is acting like the other spies when you should be acting as Joshua and Caleb. In fact, the Bible is full of admonitions to "FEAR NOT." Let me just remind you that, in this fight for the right to life of preborn children, we are most definitely on God's side. And since we are on God's side, we should not operate under fear, but we should loudly and boldly proclaim that the God-given right to life applies to all human beings!
I am thankful that Texas Alliance for Life has responded and that a dialogue has begun.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Rick Perry
I wrote Rick Perry a letter in December 2008 in which I pointed out the Texas Penal Code's definition of "individual" and asked him why abortion can still be considered legal in Texas. I never got a response. I wrote him again in December 2009 and detailed to him how the current Texas laws which keep abortion legal are not in compliance with the 14th Amendment and are therefore unconstitutional. I never got a response. So I am writing him again, a much longer letter this time, and I will enclose my suggestions for legislation (Click here and scroll down to the images). This (or something like it since I may make a few more edits) will be going out tomorrow. I'll also carry one to the Texas Republican Convention (where I'll be a delegate) just in case I get close enough to him to hand deliver it... We are never going to get anywhere unless we make a loud noise and rock the boat...
May 27, 2010
Rick Perry, Governor of Texas
PO Box 12428
Austin, TX 78711-2428
RE: Texas law and abortion
Dear Governor Perry:
When future generations of Texans look back at your tenure as Governor of Texas, what will they see as your legacy? Will they see someone who only gave lip service to standing up to Obama’s socialist agenda but, in the end, failed to stop the massive encroachment of the federal government? Or will they see someone who stood firm against the forces of tyranny and fought for the inalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of ALL Texans?
Planned Parenthood recently opened what can only be described as an abortion “supercenter” in the Houston area, a project begun with the anticipation of abortion coverage under Obama’s proposed socialized medicine. The idea that our tax dollars will be going to pay for the murder of the unborn, the most innocent and vulnerable of human beings, is abhorrent to millions of Texans. In fact, Thomas Jefferson once said, “To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
My question to you, Governor Perry, is: what are you prepared to do to stop Obama’s socialist agenda, an agenda that completely devalues individual human life? Are you prepared to take drastic and decisive steps to put a stop to the legalized murder of innocent human beings in Texas? On January 14, 2010, I sat in the balcony of the Murchison Performing Arts Center on the campus of the University of North Texas, and I heard you say, in your debate with Kay Bailey Hutchison and Debra Medina, that you “always come down on the side of life.” Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is?
The State of Texas already has in place the foundation for ending legalized abortion. According to Tex. Penal Code §1.07, a “Person” “means an individual, corporation, or association." (Tex. Penal Code §1.07.38) An "individual" (the term used in the definition of "Person") "means a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth." (Tex. Penal Code §1.07.26)
Chapter 19 of the Texas Penal Code deals with the crimes of criminal homicide. Tex. Penal Code §19.02 plainly states that a person commits the offense of murder if he "intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual" (emphasis added).
The definition of individual was put into the Code by the 2003 Prenatal Protection Act, designed to protect pregnant women from violent acts that might result in the harm of their unborn children. Governor Perry, you signed this act into law which was an important step in protecting the rights of infants in the womb. Unfortunately, that same act also created Tex. Penal Code §19.06, which states, in part, that:
This chapter [the chapter defining criminal homicide] does not apply to the death of an unborn child if the conduct charged is:
(1) conduct committed by the mother of the unborn child;
(2) a lawful medical procedure performed by a physician or other licensed health care provider with the requisite consent, if the death of the unborn child was the intended result of the procedure;
Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution says, in part, that "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The current Texas code, specifically §19.06, is in clear violation of the last two clauses of Amendment Fourteen as it allows for the deprivation of life without due process of law, and it denies these certain persons "within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Even the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision claimed that: “If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment." As of 2003, Texas law now establishes this suggestion of personhood, so, according to the Roe v. Wade decision, the right to life of unborn children MUST be guaranteed in accordance with the Fourteenth Amendment.
Over the past 37 years, Texas has passed all kinds of regulations on abortion in an attempt to limit the number of abortions. What these regulations have done, because they all basically end with some form of …and then you can kill the baby, is to keep abortion legal. Now that Texas has defined womb children as persons, the State needs to eliminate the supposedly pro-life regulations which protect abortion as a legal medical procedure. Tex. Penal Code §19.06, in its current form, must be removed. All statutes which regulate abortion (i.e. keep abortion legal) must also be removed. Since unborn children are now defined, by law, as persons, and since abortion, by definition, kills unborn children, abortion must then be considered homicide, subject to prosecution just like any other homicide.
Unfortunately, there are those in the “pro-life” community who operate under fear. Texas Alliance for Life, an organization which strongly endorsed your candidacy for governor, is one of those. They have, thus far, declined to promote any legislation which would grant unborn children full personhood status and all the rights associated with being a person (the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). An examination of their Facebook page demonstrates how they are operating out of fear. On March 1, 2010, a Facebook user named Aeron Mills posted the following comment:
Debra Medina "Texas law defines life as
beginning at fertilization - taking of life as murder (except where
we are double minded and allow mothers and doctors to abort) Fix
that and you've addressed the problem in the law - requiring an
ultrasound doesn't stop the abortion. It's just more incrementalism.
Texas should revisit our own law - not allow exceptions, ban
abortion and let the court battles begin. The government has a duty
to protect innocent life - our state law says that begins at
fertilization"
Texas Alliance for Life posted the following response via the comments field:
This is the bill that Gov. Perry signed into law in 2003, the Prenatal Protection Act. Unfortunately, changing it as suggested above would render it unconstitutional in the eyes of the US Supreme Court. The problem is that the majority of the Court supports Roe v. Wade and abortion on demand. We do not have the votes to overturn Roe to allow Texas to fully protect unborn babies and their mothers from abortion.
I would point out to Texas Alliance for Life that because the Texas Penal Code now defines unborn children as persons, the current laws which allow abortion are already unconstitutional (as demonstrated in the paragraphs above).
The Pro-life movement has spent the past 37 years trying to get Roe v. Wade overturned. Before Obama’s term as president began, seven of the nine Supreme Court Justices had been appointed by supposedly pro-life Republican presidents, and yet, Roe v. Wade has remained firmly entrenched in the minds of lawmakers everywhere. The magnitude of the genocide going on around us calls for immediate and decisive action. The number of abortions in Texas is about to skyrocket thanks to the new federal healthcare law and the aggressive marketing push by Planned Parenthood and organizations like it. We at Texas Personhood demand that our state officials act without fear in putting a stop to government sanctioned murder. We demand justice for the children whose only “crime” is that they haven’t yet passed through a birth canal. We demand that you call a special session of the Texas Legislature for the expressed purpose of creating criminal penalties for those who continue to murder babies in Texas. I have enclosed a framework of what such legislation might look like.
Governor Perry, you swore in your oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State. Your taking of this oath demands that you take immediate and decisive steps to bring Texas law into compliance with what the Constitution of the United States actually says and not with what certain members of the judicial branch of government make up out of thin air and say is "constitutional." We at Texas Personhood implore you to take drastic and immediate steps to end the murder of innocent children that is occurring in Texas.
Sincerely,
Dan Hawkins
Texas Personhood
http://texaspersonhood.blogspot.com
Enclosure
Cc: Texas Alliance for Life
2026 Guadalupe Street
Austin, TX 78705
May 27, 2010
Rick Perry, Governor of Texas
PO Box 12428
Austin, TX 78711-2428
RE: Texas law and abortion
Dear Governor Perry:
When future generations of Texans look back at your tenure as Governor of Texas, what will they see as your legacy? Will they see someone who only gave lip service to standing up to Obama’s socialist agenda but, in the end, failed to stop the massive encroachment of the federal government? Or will they see someone who stood firm against the forces of tyranny and fought for the inalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of ALL Texans?
Planned Parenthood recently opened what can only be described as an abortion “supercenter” in the Houston area, a project begun with the anticipation of abortion coverage under Obama’s proposed socialized medicine. The idea that our tax dollars will be going to pay for the murder of the unborn, the most innocent and vulnerable of human beings, is abhorrent to millions of Texans. In fact, Thomas Jefferson once said, “To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
My question to you, Governor Perry, is: what are you prepared to do to stop Obama’s socialist agenda, an agenda that completely devalues individual human life? Are you prepared to take drastic and decisive steps to put a stop to the legalized murder of innocent human beings in Texas? On January 14, 2010, I sat in the balcony of the Murchison Performing Arts Center on the campus of the University of North Texas, and I heard you say, in your debate with Kay Bailey Hutchison and Debra Medina, that you “always come down on the side of life.” Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is?
The State of Texas already has in place the foundation for ending legalized abortion. According to Tex. Penal Code §1.07, a “Person” “means an individual, corporation, or association." (Tex. Penal Code §1.07.38) An "individual" (the term used in the definition of "Person") "means a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth." (Tex. Penal Code §1.07.26)
Chapter 19 of the Texas Penal Code deals with the crimes of criminal homicide. Tex. Penal Code §19.02 plainly states that a person commits the offense of murder if he "intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual" (emphasis added).
The definition of individual was put into the Code by the 2003 Prenatal Protection Act, designed to protect pregnant women from violent acts that might result in the harm of their unborn children. Governor Perry, you signed this act into law which was an important step in protecting the rights of infants in the womb. Unfortunately, that same act also created Tex. Penal Code §19.06, which states, in part, that:
This chapter [the chapter defining criminal homicide] does not apply to the death of an unborn child if the conduct charged is:
(1) conduct committed by the mother of the unborn child;
(2) a lawful medical procedure performed by a physician or other licensed health care provider with the requisite consent, if the death of the unborn child was the intended result of the procedure;
Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution says, in part, that "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The current Texas code, specifically §19.06, is in clear violation of the last two clauses of Amendment Fourteen as it allows for the deprivation of life without due process of law, and it denies these certain persons "within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Even the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision claimed that: “If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment." As of 2003, Texas law now establishes this suggestion of personhood, so, according to the Roe v. Wade decision, the right to life of unborn children MUST be guaranteed in accordance with the Fourteenth Amendment.
Over the past 37 years, Texas has passed all kinds of regulations on abortion in an attempt to limit the number of abortions. What these regulations have done, because they all basically end with some form of …and then you can kill the baby, is to keep abortion legal. Now that Texas has defined womb children as persons, the State needs to eliminate the supposedly pro-life regulations which protect abortion as a legal medical procedure. Tex. Penal Code §19.06, in its current form, must be removed. All statutes which regulate abortion (i.e. keep abortion legal) must also be removed. Since unborn children are now defined, by law, as persons, and since abortion, by definition, kills unborn children, abortion must then be considered homicide, subject to prosecution just like any other homicide.
Unfortunately, there are those in the “pro-life” community who operate under fear. Texas Alliance for Life, an organization which strongly endorsed your candidacy for governor, is one of those. They have, thus far, declined to promote any legislation which would grant unborn children full personhood status and all the rights associated with being a person (the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). An examination of their Facebook page demonstrates how they are operating out of fear. On March 1, 2010, a Facebook user named Aeron Mills posted the following comment:
Debra Medina "Texas law defines life as
beginning at fertilization - taking of life as murder (except where
we are double minded and allow mothers and doctors to abort) Fix
that and you've addressed the problem in the law - requiring an
ultrasound doesn't stop the abortion. It's just more incrementalism.
Texas should revisit our own law - not allow exceptions, ban
abortion and let the court battles begin. The government has a duty
to protect innocent life - our state law says that begins at
fertilization"
Texas Alliance for Life posted the following response via the comments field:
This is the bill that Gov. Perry signed into law in 2003, the Prenatal Protection Act. Unfortunately, changing it as suggested above would render it unconstitutional in the eyes of the US Supreme Court. The problem is that the majority of the Court supports Roe v. Wade and abortion on demand. We do not have the votes to overturn Roe to allow Texas to fully protect unborn babies and their mothers from abortion.
I would point out to Texas Alliance for Life that because the Texas Penal Code now defines unborn children as persons, the current laws which allow abortion are already unconstitutional (as demonstrated in the paragraphs above).
The Pro-life movement has spent the past 37 years trying to get Roe v. Wade overturned. Before Obama’s term as president began, seven of the nine Supreme Court Justices had been appointed by supposedly pro-life Republican presidents, and yet, Roe v. Wade has remained firmly entrenched in the minds of lawmakers everywhere. The magnitude of the genocide going on around us calls for immediate and decisive action. The number of abortions in Texas is about to skyrocket thanks to the new federal healthcare law and the aggressive marketing push by Planned Parenthood and organizations like it. We at Texas Personhood demand that our state officials act without fear in putting a stop to government sanctioned murder. We demand justice for the children whose only “crime” is that they haven’t yet passed through a birth canal. We demand that you call a special session of the Texas Legislature for the expressed purpose of creating criminal penalties for those who continue to murder babies in Texas. I have enclosed a framework of what such legislation might look like.
Governor Perry, you swore in your oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State. Your taking of this oath demands that you take immediate and decisive steps to bring Texas law into compliance with what the Constitution of the United States actually says and not with what certain members of the judicial branch of government make up out of thin air and say is "constitutional." We at Texas Personhood implore you to take drastic and immediate steps to end the murder of innocent children that is occurring in Texas.
Sincerely,
Dan Hawkins
Texas Personhood
http://texaspersonhood.blogspot.com
Enclosure
Cc: Texas Alliance for Life
2026 Guadalupe Street
Austin, TX 78705
Monday, May 24, 2010
Molech Today
My Sunday School class was studying the book of Leviticus yesterday, and the subject of abortion came up. We were reading from Leviticus chapter 20:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. 3 I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. 4 And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, 5 then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech. Leviticus 1: 1-5 (ESV)
Molech was an especially heinous idol of the Ammonites, the worship of which required people to sacrifice their infant children. The base of this idol was hollow and served as a furnace. Once the fire was started, a baby was placed within the arms of the idol. The baby would then be cooked and burned alive.
Most of us today would think that a people who had been chosen by God and who had seen firsthand the wonders performed by God (the plagues of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, pillar of fire, manna from heaven, etc., etc.) would not need instruction against something so heinous, but the Bible records multiple instances of Israelites doing that very thing.
My question is why. Why would the Israelites do such a thing? Were they trying to impress the Ammonites by worshipping their god? Were they afraid of confrontation with the Ammonites, and did they hope to avoid such confrontation by conforming to their customs? What was this promise of Molech and the Ammonites? What did the people hope to gain by murdering their children in these rituals?
Unfortunately, Molech is alive and well today in the United States. He goes by the name Choice, aka Reproductive Freedom. Our children have been sacrificed by the millions, all in the name of Choice.
When speaking of the original Molech, Leviticus 20:4-5 gave warnings to the Israelites not to tolerate those who did sacrifice their children: "And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, 5 then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech."
The word "whoring" in verse 5 seems fitting since that describes "Reproductive Freedom" fairly well. We who follow Christ and are God's chosen people cannot close our eyes to the horror of abortion. We must demand justice for the children and for those who are murdering them. The only way to do this is to declare, by law, that all human beings, from conception to natural death, are "persons" and to demand that our government not "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," especially laws against murder. We must make these demands boldly and without fear.
I have received no comment of any kind from Texas Alliance for Life regarding my previous blog post. Yes, I was critical of them (especially their troubling Facebook comment), but I had hoped to open some sort of dialogue regarding their "strategy" for ending legalized abortion in Texas. I had also hoped to discuss with them an estimate of how many babies might be killed while waiting for Roe v. Wade to magically be overturned or for the makeup of the Supreme Court to change so that they might feel "comfortable" challenging Roe v. Wade. I suppose I'll send them a link to this blog entry and see if this one generates a response...
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Say to the people of Israel, Any one of the people of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. 3 I myself will set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given one of his children to Molech, to make my sanctuary unclean and to profane my holy name. 4 And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, 5 then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech. Leviticus 1: 1-5 (ESV)
Molech was an especially heinous idol of the Ammonites, the worship of which required people to sacrifice their infant children. The base of this idol was hollow and served as a furnace. Once the fire was started, a baby was placed within the arms of the idol. The baby would then be cooked and burned alive.
Most of us today would think that a people who had been chosen by God and who had seen firsthand the wonders performed by God (the plagues of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, pillar of fire, manna from heaven, etc., etc.) would not need instruction against something so heinous, but the Bible records multiple instances of Israelites doing that very thing.
My question is why. Why would the Israelites do such a thing? Were they trying to impress the Ammonites by worshipping their god? Were they afraid of confrontation with the Ammonites, and did they hope to avoid such confrontation by conforming to their customs? What was this promise of Molech and the Ammonites? What did the people hope to gain by murdering their children in these rituals?
Unfortunately, Molech is alive and well today in the United States. He goes by the name Choice, aka Reproductive Freedom. Our children have been sacrificed by the millions, all in the name of Choice.
When speaking of the original Molech, Leviticus 20:4-5 gave warnings to the Israelites not to tolerate those who did sacrifice their children: "And if the people of the land do at all close their eyes to that man when he gives one of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death, 5 then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and will cut them off from among their people, him and all who follow him in whoring after Molech."
The word "whoring" in verse 5 seems fitting since that describes "Reproductive Freedom" fairly well. We who follow Christ and are God's chosen people cannot close our eyes to the horror of abortion. We must demand justice for the children and for those who are murdering them. The only way to do this is to declare, by law, that all human beings, from conception to natural death, are "persons" and to demand that our government not "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," especially laws against murder. We must make these demands boldly and without fear.
I have received no comment of any kind from Texas Alliance for Life regarding my previous blog post. Yes, I was critical of them (especially their troubling Facebook comment), but I had hoped to open some sort of dialogue regarding their "strategy" for ending legalized abortion in Texas. I had also hoped to discuss with them an estimate of how many babies might be killed while waiting for Roe v. Wade to magically be overturned or for the makeup of the Supreme Court to change so that they might feel "comfortable" challenging Roe v. Wade. I suppose I'll send them a link to this blog entry and see if this one generates a response...
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Pro-life and Personhood
I received the Spring 2010 "Life Matters" newsletter from Texas Alliance for Life yesterday (digital copy can be seen here: http://www.texasallianceforlife.org/NEWS/LifeMatters/LM_10_Spr.pdf), and it reminded me of why I am a part of the personhood movement. The first article heralded the Republican Party primary victory of "pro-life Gov. Rick Perry." I agree with Texas Alliance for Life that Perry is a better candidate than Kay Bailey Hutchison who "styled herself as 'pro-life' but was not able to run from her career-defining votes in the U.S. Senate to support Roe v. Wade and to fund embryonic stem cell research." But the article fails to mention Debra Medina's position on abortion issues. Could it be because Debra Medina has stronger pro-life views than Rick Perry?
Rick Perry's position is that abortion should be legal only in cases involving rape or incest or when carrying a pregnancy to term would threaten the woman’s life. Debra Medina's campaign website has the following statement: "Life begins at conception and concludes at natural death. Every human is created in the image of God. God, not man, is the measure of all things. Every human life is precious and I will work to protect innocent human life." In personal conversations that I have had with her, she indicated her support for personhood laws in Texas. I am still waiting on a reply from Rick Perry to the letter I wrote him in December.
But let's analyze Rick Perry's position on abortion. He says that abortion should be illegal except in cases involving rape, incest, or a threat to the mother's life. Why, then, does Rick Perry think other abortions should be illegal? Could it be because life begins at conception, and to destroy any life after that constitutes a homicide? If that is the case, why should the homicide of a child conceived in rape or incest continue to be legal, while other children receive legal protection? The child had no say in the circumstances of his or her conception. Why does that child not receive the same protection as other children? Isn't that a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause which prohibits any State from denying "to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws?" The only way for Rick Perry (or anyone else holding this view that abortion should remain legal in cases of rape or incest) to get around the amendment is to claim that a child in the womb is not a person. So if the child in the womb is not a person, why does Rick Perry think most abortions should be illegal? When taking into account the rape and incest exception, the only plausible explanation I can think of is that he wants to use government to force women to face the consequences of their sexual activity. That view really isn't that far off from Obama's famous statement that he doesn't want his daughters "punished with a baby."
Politicians take this "pro-life with exceptions for rape and incest" position because they want to win elections. They either just don't think logically about the issue, or they are afraid to take a stand and try to pursuade people that what they stand for is right and just. My question is, what good are these supposed "pro-life" politicians? This Texas Alliance for Life newsletter touts these "pro-life candidates" and the supposedly pro-life bills and policies that they implement, but what good are a bunch of laws that describe conditions under which abortionists can continue to kill children? What good are these "pro-life" politicians when, just yesterday, a new abortion super-center opened in Houston (http://www.lifenews.com/state5093.html)?
This is not to say that I don't think that the people at Texas Alliance for Life have their hearts in the right place. But they and many in the pro-life movement are paralyzed by fear. They, like too many of our government officials, think that a United States Supreme Court opinion trumps anything that any other branch of government can do. There is such an emphasis in the pro-life movement on overturning Roe v. Wade that it makes itself impotent to actually stopping baby-killing irregardless of what the Supreme Court says. To illustrate this fear, just look at the Texas Alliance for Life Facebook page and click on the "Just Others" link to see comments from regular users.
The first item listed is from Aeron Mills from March 1st (apparently Texas Alliance for Life thereafter took away the ability for fans to post original items to the group page). Aeron Mills posted the following:
Debra Medina "Texas law defines life as
beginning at fertilization - taking of life as murder (except where
we are double minded and allow mothers and doctors to abort) Fix
that and you've addressed the problem in the law - requiring an
ultrasound doesn't stop the abortion. It's just more incrementalism.
Texas should revisit our own law - not allow exceptions, ban
abortion and let the court battles begin. The government has a duty
to protect innocent life - our state law says that begins at
fertilization"
The first comment under this is directly from Texas Alliance for Life:
This is the bill that Gov. Perry signed into law in 2003, the Prenatal Protection Act. Unfortunately, changing it as suggested above would render it unconstitutional in the eyes of the US Supreme Court. The problem is that the majority of the Court supports Roe v. Wade and abortion on demand. We do not have the votes to overturn Roe to allow Texas to fully protect unborn babies and their mothers from abortion.
When I saw the response of Texas Alliance for Life to this posting, I was reminded of the story of Joshua and Caleb. Moses sent spies into the promised land. When the spies came back, all but Joshua and Caleb said that the land was occupied by giants and large, fortified cities and that the Israelites would not be able to defeat them. Joshua and Caleb reported that, with God, the Israelites could defeat whoever occupied the land. Texas Alliance for Life is acting like the other spies when it should be acting as Joshua and Caleb.
Why are we worrying about votes in the Supreme Court for overturning Roe v. Wade? We've been waiting for that for 37 years while standing by and allowing the murder of fifty million of our fellow human beings. The people killing these babies want us to keep on waiting for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, but we CANNOT WAIT. We need to take action now.
I say, to Hell with Roe v. Wade. Texas needs to protect the lives of these innocent children, and it needs to do it NOW! The only way to do this is to declare that all human beings are persons, from fertization to natural death. We cannot be paralyzed with fear. We need government officials who will act in good conscience and do what they know is right, and if protecting the right to life of all human beings is not right, then nothing is. As Personhood USA co-founder Cal Zastrow often says, "Personhood Now!" And as Debra Medina is quoted here as saying, "Let the court battles begin."
Rick Perry's position is that abortion should be legal only in cases involving rape or incest or when carrying a pregnancy to term would threaten the woman’s life. Debra Medina's campaign website has the following statement: "Life begins at conception and concludes at natural death. Every human is created in the image of God. God, not man, is the measure of all things. Every human life is precious and I will work to protect innocent human life." In personal conversations that I have had with her, she indicated her support for personhood laws in Texas. I am still waiting on a reply from Rick Perry to the letter I wrote him in December.
But let's analyze Rick Perry's position on abortion. He says that abortion should be illegal except in cases involving rape, incest, or a threat to the mother's life. Why, then, does Rick Perry think other abortions should be illegal? Could it be because life begins at conception, and to destroy any life after that constitutes a homicide? If that is the case, why should the homicide of a child conceived in rape or incest continue to be legal, while other children receive legal protection? The child had no say in the circumstances of his or her conception. Why does that child not receive the same protection as other children? Isn't that a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause which prohibits any State from denying "to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws?" The only way for Rick Perry (or anyone else holding this view that abortion should remain legal in cases of rape or incest) to get around the amendment is to claim that a child in the womb is not a person. So if the child in the womb is not a person, why does Rick Perry think most abortions should be illegal? When taking into account the rape and incest exception, the only plausible explanation I can think of is that he wants to use government to force women to face the consequences of their sexual activity. That view really isn't that far off from Obama's famous statement that he doesn't want his daughters "punished with a baby."
Politicians take this "pro-life with exceptions for rape and incest" position because they want to win elections. They either just don't think logically about the issue, or they are afraid to take a stand and try to pursuade people that what they stand for is right and just. My question is, what good are these supposed "pro-life" politicians? This Texas Alliance for Life newsletter touts these "pro-life candidates" and the supposedly pro-life bills and policies that they implement, but what good are a bunch of laws that describe conditions under which abortionists can continue to kill children? What good are these "pro-life" politicians when, just yesterday, a new abortion super-center opened in Houston (http://www.lifenews.com/state5093.html)?
This is not to say that I don't think that the people at Texas Alliance for Life have their hearts in the right place. But they and many in the pro-life movement are paralyzed by fear. They, like too many of our government officials, think that a United States Supreme Court opinion trumps anything that any other branch of government can do. There is such an emphasis in the pro-life movement on overturning Roe v. Wade that it makes itself impotent to actually stopping baby-killing irregardless of what the Supreme Court says. To illustrate this fear, just look at the Texas Alliance for Life Facebook page and click on the "Just Others" link to see comments from regular users.
The first item listed is from Aeron Mills from March 1st (apparently Texas Alliance for Life thereafter took away the ability for fans to post original items to the group page). Aeron Mills posted the following:
Debra Medina "Texas law defines life as
beginning at fertilization - taking of life as murder (except where
we are double minded and allow mothers and doctors to abort) Fix
that and you've addressed the problem in the law - requiring an
ultrasound doesn't stop the abortion. It's just more incrementalism.
Texas should revisit our own law - not allow exceptions, ban
abortion and let the court battles begin. The government has a duty
to protect innocent life - our state law says that begins at
fertilization"
The first comment under this is directly from Texas Alliance for Life:
This is the bill that Gov. Perry signed into law in 2003, the Prenatal Protection Act. Unfortunately, changing it as suggested above would render it unconstitutional in the eyes of the US Supreme Court. The problem is that the majority of the Court supports Roe v. Wade and abortion on demand. We do not have the votes to overturn Roe to allow Texas to fully protect unborn babies and their mothers from abortion.
When I saw the response of Texas Alliance for Life to this posting, I was reminded of the story of Joshua and Caleb. Moses sent spies into the promised land. When the spies came back, all but Joshua and Caleb said that the land was occupied by giants and large, fortified cities and that the Israelites would not be able to defeat them. Joshua and Caleb reported that, with God, the Israelites could defeat whoever occupied the land. Texas Alliance for Life is acting like the other spies when it should be acting as Joshua and Caleb.
Why are we worrying about votes in the Supreme Court for overturning Roe v. Wade? We've been waiting for that for 37 years while standing by and allowing the murder of fifty million of our fellow human beings. The people killing these babies want us to keep on waiting for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, but we CANNOT WAIT. We need to take action now.
I say, to Hell with Roe v. Wade. Texas needs to protect the lives of these innocent children, and it needs to do it NOW! The only way to do this is to declare that all human beings are persons, from fertization to natural death. We cannot be paralyzed with fear. We need government officials who will act in good conscience and do what they know is right, and if protecting the right to life of all human beings is not right, then nothing is. As Personhood USA co-founder Cal Zastrow often says, "Personhood Now!" And as Debra Medina is quoted here as saying, "Let the court battles begin."
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Elena Kagan
Resident of the White House Barack Obama has nominated Elena Kagan to the United States Supreme Court vacancy created by the retirement of John Paul Stevens. Although Kagan's record (what little there is of it since she has never been a judge and has very little experience as an attorney outside of academia) shows that she is clearly pro-abortion: http://lifenews.com/nat6316.html, some of the liberal, pro-abortion media sites are trying to paint a somewhat "moderate" picture of her: http://jezebel.com/5536023/elena-kagans-abortion-rights-stances-unclear.
Like everything else coming out of the White House these days, this "moderate" view of Kagan is not to be trusted. We should all remember that this appointment was made by a "President" who once stood in front of a wall emblazoned with the logo of Planned Parenthood and declared, in regards to the issue of giving women the "right" to murder their children, that he "will not yield and Planned Parenthood will not yield."
The fact is that, short of some kind of miraculous spiritual conversion, Obama will NEVER nominate a Supreme Court Justice who recognizes the personhood of all human beings. This is one of many, many reasons why he needs to be defeated in the next election. In the meantime, we all need to push for the legal recognition of what is obvious to all who haven't been blinded by the lies used to justify baby-killing: that the life of a human being begins at conception and that ALL human beings are created with an inalienable right to life. This is exactly what we are calling for in our letters to our state legislators.
This is not to say that we shouldn't oppose Kagan's appointment. In fact, I encourage all of you reading this to go to http://www.iopposekagan.com and voice your opposition. Maybe we can draw this out so long that that vacancy remains vacant until we get a President worthy of making a nomination to the Supreme Court.
Like everything else coming out of the White House these days, this "moderate" view of Kagan is not to be trusted. We should all remember that this appointment was made by a "President" who once stood in front of a wall emblazoned with the logo of Planned Parenthood and declared, in regards to the issue of giving women the "right" to murder their children, that he "will not yield and Planned Parenthood will not yield."
The fact is that, short of some kind of miraculous spiritual conversion, Obama will NEVER nominate a Supreme Court Justice who recognizes the personhood of all human beings. This is one of many, many reasons why he needs to be defeated in the next election. In the meantime, we all need to push for the legal recognition of what is obvious to all who haven't been blinded by the lies used to justify baby-killing: that the life of a human being begins at conception and that ALL human beings are created with an inalienable right to life. This is exactly what we are calling for in our letters to our state legislators.
This is not to say that we shouldn't oppose Kagan's appointment. In fact, I encourage all of you reading this to go to http://www.iopposekagan.com and voice your opposition. Maybe we can draw this out so long that that vacancy remains vacant until we get a President worthy of making a nomination to the Supreme Court.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, President of the Texas Senate
A new letter is going out today to Lt. Governor David Dewhurst. Since the Lt. Governor serves as the President of the Senate, he has more legislative power than any other single Texas government official. While Dewhurst is not guaranteed the position of Lt. Governor in the next legislative session, he should be favored over his Democratic opponent in the November election, the pro-baby-murder Linda Chavez-Thompson.
This letter is similar to past letters to state senators Jane Nelson and Dan Patrick, with just a few edits in the last two paragraphs. I encourage all of you reading this to copy this letter, substitute your name for mine, and send your own copies. I have also attached images of the "bill" I composed...
May 6, 2010
Lt. Governor David Dewhurst
P.O. Box 12068
Austin, Texas 78711
RE: Unconstitutional Texas Law
Dear Lt. Governor Dewhurst:
As a citizen of the great State of Texas, I am writing to you today to express my grave concern about sections of the current Texas Penal Code that are in plain violation of the Constitution of the United States. This is especially concerning now that the pro-abortion healthcare bill has become federal law.
According to Tex. Penal Code §1.07, a “Person” “means an individual, corporation, or association." (Tex. Penal Code §1.07.38) An "individual" (the term used in the definition of "Person") "means a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth." (Tex. Penal Code §1.07.26)
Chapter 19 of the Texas Penal Code deals with the crimes of criminal homicide. Tex. Penal Code §19.02 plainly states that a person commits the offense of murder if he "intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual."
The definition of individual was put into the Code by the 2003 Prenatal Protection Act, designed to protect pregnant women from violent acts that might result in the harm of their unborn children. This act was an important step in protecting the rights of infants in the womb. Unfortunately, that same act also created Tex. Penal Code §19.06, which states, in part, that:
This chapter [the chapter defining criminal homicide] does not apply to the death of an unborn child if the conduct charged is:
(1) conduct committed by the mother of the unborn child;
(2) a lawful medical procedure performed by a physician or other licensed health care provider with the requisite consent, if the death of the unborn child was the intended result of the procedure;
After reading these sections of the code, I can only come to the conclusion that unborn children are defined as persons according to the law, and yet Texas law fails to protect the inalienable rights of these persons.
Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution says, in part, that "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The current Texas code, specifically §19.06, is in clear violation of the last two clauses of Amendment Fourteen as it allows for the deprivation of life without due process of law, and it denies these certain persons "within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Even the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision claimed that: “If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment." As of 2003, Texas law now establishes this suggestion of personhood by statute, so, according to the Roe v. Wade decision, the right to life of unborn children MUST be guaranteed in accordance with the Fourteenth Amendment.
Lt. Governor Dewhurst, you swore in your oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State. Your taking of this oath demands that you take immediate and decisive steps to bring Texas law into compliance with the Constitution of the United States and to stop the murder of innocent human life that is taking place in this state.
Over the past 37 years, Texas has passed all kinds of regulations on abortion in an attempt to limit the atrocity. What these regulations have done, because they all basically end with some form of …and then you can kill the baby, is to keep abortion legal. Now that Texas has defined womb children as persons, the State needs to eliminate the supposedly pro-life regulations which protect abortion as a legal medical procedure. I have enclosed a model for future legislation. Tex. Penal Code §19.06, in its current form, must be removed. All statutes which regulate abortion (i.e. keep abortion legal) must also be removed. Since unborn children are now defined, by law, as persons, and since abortion, by definition, kills unborn children, abortion must then be considered homicide, subject to prosecution just like any other homicide.
Lt. Governor Dewhurst, will you have the moral courage to propose and/or support such a bill in the next session of the Texas Legislature? As a fellow citizen of the State of Texas, I implore you to do so.
Sincerely,
Dan Hawkins
Texas Personhood
Enclosure
This letter is similar to past letters to state senators Jane Nelson and Dan Patrick, with just a few edits in the last two paragraphs. I encourage all of you reading this to copy this letter, substitute your name for mine, and send your own copies. I have also attached images of the "bill" I composed...
May 6, 2010
Lt. Governor David Dewhurst
P.O. Box 12068
Austin, Texas 78711
RE: Unconstitutional Texas Law
Dear Lt. Governor Dewhurst:
As a citizen of the great State of Texas, I am writing to you today to express my grave concern about sections of the current Texas Penal Code that are in plain violation of the Constitution of the United States. This is especially concerning now that the pro-abortion healthcare bill has become federal law.
According to Tex. Penal Code §1.07, a “Person” “means an individual, corporation, or association." (Tex. Penal Code §1.07.38) An "individual" (the term used in the definition of "Person") "means a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth." (Tex. Penal Code §1.07.26)
Chapter 19 of the Texas Penal Code deals with the crimes of criminal homicide. Tex. Penal Code §19.02 plainly states that a person commits the offense of murder if he "intentionally or knowingly causes the death of an individual."
The definition of individual was put into the Code by the 2003 Prenatal Protection Act, designed to protect pregnant women from violent acts that might result in the harm of their unborn children. This act was an important step in protecting the rights of infants in the womb. Unfortunately, that same act also created Tex. Penal Code §19.06, which states, in part, that:
This chapter [the chapter defining criminal homicide] does not apply to the death of an unborn child if the conduct charged is:
(1) conduct committed by the mother of the unborn child;
(2) a lawful medical procedure performed by a physician or other licensed health care provider with the requisite consent, if the death of the unborn child was the intended result of the procedure;
After reading these sections of the code, I can only come to the conclusion that unborn children are defined as persons according to the law, and yet Texas law fails to protect the inalienable rights of these persons.
Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution says, in part, that "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The current Texas code, specifically §19.06, is in clear violation of the last two clauses of Amendment Fourteen as it allows for the deprivation of life without due process of law, and it denies these certain persons "within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Even the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision claimed that: “If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth] Amendment." As of 2003, Texas law now establishes this suggestion of personhood by statute, so, according to the Roe v. Wade decision, the right to life of unborn children MUST be guaranteed in accordance with the Fourteenth Amendment.
Lt. Governor Dewhurst, you swore in your oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State. Your taking of this oath demands that you take immediate and decisive steps to bring Texas law into compliance with the Constitution of the United States and to stop the murder of innocent human life that is taking place in this state.
Over the past 37 years, Texas has passed all kinds of regulations on abortion in an attempt to limit the atrocity. What these regulations have done, because they all basically end with some form of …and then you can kill the baby, is to keep abortion legal. Now that Texas has defined womb children as persons, the State needs to eliminate the supposedly pro-life regulations which protect abortion as a legal medical procedure. I have enclosed a model for future legislation. Tex. Penal Code §19.06, in its current form, must be removed. All statutes which regulate abortion (i.e. keep abortion legal) must also be removed. Since unborn children are now defined, by law, as persons, and since abortion, by definition, kills unborn children, abortion must then be considered homicide, subject to prosecution just like any other homicide.
Lt. Governor Dewhurst, will you have the moral courage to propose and/or support such a bill in the next session of the Texas Legislature? As a fellow citizen of the State of Texas, I implore you to do so.
Sincerely,
Dan Hawkins
Texas Personhood
Enclosure
Monday, May 3, 2010
Our Mission
The mission of Texas Personhood comes straight from the Word of God and is stated above: "Give justice to the weak and fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked." - Psalm 82:3-4 (ESV)
Justice comes from the legal system. Right now, thanks to a moral failure of our legal system, children in the womb can be killed at will by their mothers and their abortionists. These children have no legal protection against this form of murder. The quickest way to correcting this is by demanding that our lawmakers fix this injustice by changing the laws.
The general election, when the people of Texas will elect members of the legislature, is this November. The legislature will convene in January. Once election day passes and we know who our state senators and representatives will be, we will be contacting all of them before the legislative session begins in January and stating our demands that these children be fully recognized as human beings with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I invite everyone reading this to join us this November and December. The more letters and phone calls these legislators receive, the more difficult it will be for them to ignore us or the children who are being murdered daily in Texas. We must be the voices for those who have no voice...
Justice comes from the legal system. Right now, thanks to a moral failure of our legal system, children in the womb can be killed at will by their mothers and their abortionists. These children have no legal protection against this form of murder. The quickest way to correcting this is by demanding that our lawmakers fix this injustice by changing the laws.
The general election, when the people of Texas will elect members of the legislature, is this November. The legislature will convene in January. Once election day passes and we know who our state senators and representatives will be, we will be contacting all of them before the legislative session begins in January and stating our demands that these children be fully recognized as human beings with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I invite everyone reading this to join us this November and December. The more letters and phone calls these legislators receive, the more difficult it will be for them to ignore us or the children who are being murdered daily in Texas. We must be the voices for those who have no voice...
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