Today, Texas senators voted to approve Senate Bill 8, legislation that would introduce new limits on abortion and, most notably, ban dismemberment abortions. Known as a dilation and evacuation (D&E) abortion, the procedure is the most common second-trimester abortion method practiced in the United States.
The bill would require both hospitals and abortion facilities to either bury or cremate all fetal remains, whether from miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion. Abortion advocates are sure to insist that this is unnecessary, but the actions of the abortion industry indicate otherwise. A video released in Live Action’s Abortion Corporation series showed how callously Planned Parenthood treats the remains of babies it aborts: dumped down sinks, put in freezers, thrown into landfills, and stored in closets.
A Center for Medical Progress video showed abortion facility representatives joking about being kicked out of funeral homes for their cruel and callous handling of fetal remains and discussing how they had been putting the babies’ bodies down the garbage disposal and into the Detroit sewer system. One undercover video out of Texas found babies stored in freezers at a Houston Planned Parenthood.
Clearly, the abortion industry cannot be trusted to handle fetal remains in a humane or compassionate way.
But even more importantly, the bill will ban D&E abortions, a violent procedure that can be committed after the preborn baby can already feel pain. Former abortionist Anthony Levatino explains the process in this video:
The abortionist first inserts laminaria into the woman’s cervix, to begin the process of dilation. Twenty-four to 48 hours later, she is asked to return to the abortion facility to finish the procedure. The abortionist will first suction out the amniotic fluid, and then use a sopher clamp — a grasping instrument with rows of sharp “teeth” — to tear the baby apart limb from limb, before moving on to the baby’s organs and finally, the head. The abortionist will then use a curette to remove the placenta, and then collects all of the baby’s body parts and reassemble them, to make sure nothing was left behind.
This procedure is especially horrifying, as it’s almost conclusively provable that preborn babies can feel pain by 20 weeks gestation, and new research indicates that they may begin feeling pain in the first trimester.
The bill will now be sent to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk to be signed into law.
John Seago, legislative director for Texas Right to Life, provided this statement to Live Action applauding the passage of the bill through the state legislature:
Texas Right to Life is proud to have championed the Dismemberment Abortion Ban through the Texas State Legislature this Session. We believe the pro-life movement needs to focus on legislation that will move us closer to overturning Roe, that educates the public on the inhumanity of elective abortion and the humanity of preborn children, and will save lives. The Dismemberment Abortion ban that was passed in Senate Bill 8 today accomplishess all three. No matter what political party or ideology you ascribe to, this is an important conversation: Are we the kind of society that will tolerate taking the lives of innocent human beings by ripping their limbs from their bodies? That is a cruel and gruesome procedure that no civilized culture should prrotect in law. Thankfully, Texas will become the eighth state to prohibit this torturous and violent procedure.
While the new restrictions will almost surely face challenges in court, this is an important step forward for Texas. The legislative session ends Monday, and lawmakers refuse to be intimidated out of doing the right thing. As Republican state Sen. Charles Schwertner said, “We shouldn’t be afraid to pass laws that we think are necessary, proper, and right.”
