House Bill 1500 vs. 896

Here we go again.  Texas Representative Briscoe Cain just filed House Bill 1500 (https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/86R/billtext/html/HB01500I.htm) prohibiting physicians from performing an abortion once a fetal heartbeat has been detected.  Representative Cain and the co-authors mean well, but there are several problems with the bill.  The first is that the responsibility of detecting said heartbeat is assigned to the abortionist (i.e. the person hired by the mother to kill the baby).  The second is that exceptions to this prohibition are allowed for "medical emergencies", but the bill leaves it to the abortionist to define what a medical emergency is. But the biggest problem with this bill is that it does not recognize 14th Amendment protections ("... 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.") to unborn children, even though the Texas Penal Code already defines them as persons (PENAL § 1.07.a.(38) “Person” means an individual, corporation, or association. AND PENAL § 1.07.a.(26) “Individual” means a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every stage of gestation from fertilization until birth.).  Instead, HB 1500 treats abortion like a simple medical procedure that can be regulated.  Recent history has already shown us that such bills will not be upheld in Federal courts. The bill also includes a section about what to do if enforcement of any part of the act is blocked or declared to be invalid.  It seems that the bill's author already knows that it will not be upheld by the courts. By contrast, House Bill 896 (https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/86R/billtext/html/HB00896I.htm)  very simply grants 14th Amendment protects to everyone who falls under that definition of person that is already the law in the Texas Penal Code.  An abortion is classified as a homicide, not merely a prohibited medical procedure. HB 896 is something unlike anything that has ever been passed out of any state legislature, a bill that admits what we who were all once unborn children already know, that our personhood started at the beginning of our lives and that that beginning was fertilization.  It's a simple law, and when I look at it and compare it to what Justice Blackmon wrote in Roe v. Wade, I believe that it would withstand a judicial review.  These next two paragraphs are from Footnote 54 of the Roe v. Wade majority opinion: "When Texas urges that a fetus is entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection as a person, it faces a dilemma. Neither in Texas nor in any other State are all abortions prohibited. Despite broad proscription, an exception always exists. The exception contained [410 U.S. 113, 158] in Art. 1196, for an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother, is typical. But if the fetus is a person who is not to be deprived of life without due process of law, and if the mother's condition is the sole determinant, does not the Texas exception appear to be out of line with the Amendment's command? "There are other inconsistencies between Fourteenth Amendment status and the typical abortion statute. It has already been pointed out, n. 49, supra, that in Texas the woman is not a principal or an accomplice with respect to an abortion upon her. If the fetus is a person, why is the woman not a principal or an accomplice? Further, the penalty for criminal abortion specified by Art. 1195 is significantly less than the maximum penalty for murder prescribed by Art. 1257 of the Texas Penal Code. If the fetus is a person, may the penalties be different?" HB 1500 in no way conforms to the logic used in Footnote 54 of Roe v. Wade.  The exception for "medical emergencies" is directly addressed in the first paragraph of the quotation.  HB 1500 also assigns no blame or responsibility on the mother for the killing of her child, something addressed in the second paragraph of the quotation.  In fact, HB 1500 grants the mother to power to sue the abortionist for wrongful death of her child if that abortionist is found in violation of HB 1500, as if we are rewarding her for her complicity in her child's murder. Since it is obvious that the Legislature will not pass both HB 896 and HB 1500, we ask all legislators to support HB 896.