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
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