Newsdesk asked the Attorney General Greg Abbott’s staff for the AG’s reaction to the lawsuit filed Friday morning against HB2 by a national coalition of reproductive rights organizations. It only took a day to receive the AG’s official response: “We have no comment.”
Other supporters of the law that will impose harsh new requirements on doctors and their patients, and severely limit women’s access to legal abortion, did release statements. Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, who carried the bill on the Senate floor, called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said the bill “plays a critically important role in improving safety standards for women and protecting the life of the unborn child. This lawsuit is an effort to delay implementation of certain provisions in the bill that would improve women’s healthcare in the state of Texas.”
Elizabeth Graham, director of Texas Right to Life, was less decorous, denouncing the named plaintiffs – Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Center for Reproductive Rights – as mercenary and only concerned with “the abortion industry’s bottom line.” Graham described the reproductive rights organizations as “extremists,” and said the lawsuit represented a victory for anti-abortion forces because the suit addresses only two of the four major restrictions imposed by HB 2 (the requirement of nearby admitting privileges for doctors, and FDA protocols for abortions by medication).
Graham claimed that not yet challenging either the 20-week limit and the facility requirements must mean that the pro-choice advocates have surrendered on those provisions – although when filing the suit, the plaintiff organizations made it clear that those provisions will be addressed later or in other venues.
The full flavor of Graham’s rhetoric is something to behold: “The abortion crowd knows that they can’t win arguments about killing babies who feel pain, but these extremists are desperate to keep playing fast and loose with women’s health, resisting all increased health and safety standards required by House Bill 2.’
“Never before have Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the Center for Reproductive Rights joined their anti-life forces in such an orchestrated manner, indicating that House Bill 2 will significantly impact the bottom line of the abortionists’ blood money,” Graham continued. “Texas Right to Life has full confidence in our Pro-Life Attorney General Greg Abbott, who has already announced his determination and commitment to defend this landmark law.”
General Abbott apparently doesn’t need to speak for himself, when viper-tongued supporters like Graham will speak for him.
This article appears in September 27 • 2013.
