On Tuesday Senate Bill 8, also known as the Texas Heartbeat Act, was voted out of committee. The bill is authored by Senator Bryan Hughes from Mineola, Texas. If passed, the Texas Heartbeat Act would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected and would enable anyone to sue an abortionist who commits an abortion after a heartbeat is detected. Currently, abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy are enforcably prohibited. A fetal heartbeat can be detected as early as six weeks of gestation, before many women even know that they are pregnant and carrying another life inside of them.

This bill, and six other pro-life bills, recently made it past Senate committee. The Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs is comprised of six Republicans and three Democrats. All Republicans and one Democrat, Sen Lucio Jr., voted to pass SB 8 to the whole Senate, which serves as a reminder that being pro-life need not fall strictly along party lines.

Now the whole Texas Senate will be able to vote on the Texas Heartbeat Act. The bill must also pass through a House committee and the full Texas House of Representatives and then be signed by Governor Abbott. The House of Representatives counterpart to SB 8, House Bill 1515, was filed by Rep. Shelby Slawson (R-Stephenville). Texas Right to Life has called Sen. Hughes and Rep. Slawson “champions with lifelong dedication to defending the most vulnerable Texans.”

Sen. Hughes’s summary of the bill reads:

“The bill establishes that the State of Texas never repealed, either expressly or impliedly, the state statutes enacted before Roe v. Wade which prohibit abortion unless the mother’s life is in danger.

The bill mandates that the physician determine whether there is a heartbeat. If a heartbeat is detected, the physician is prohibited from knowingly performing or inducing an abortion.”

The Texas Heartbeat Act recognizes that the courts do not make or repeals laws. Courts issue fallible opinions that can be changed. Additionally, SB 8 recognizes that modern science has demonstrated the life begins at conception and is identifiable by heartbeat. David Bellow apt says, “The unique heartbeat is a universal sign of individual life.”

John Seago of Texas Right Life said regarding the seven pro-life bills that passed committee:

 “Texas is uniquely positioned to lead, being in the [conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ jurisdiction], having the attorney general's office that we do and having the Supreme Court that we do.”

With a conservative, constitutionalist court being the lasting legacy of former President Trump, the odds of abortion-prohibiting laws being upheld is at an all-time high.There appears to be no time like the present to defend the unborn. Pro-life Texans are eager to reclaim Texas’s dominate pro-life status. Texas has fallen from being the fourth most pro-life state to the twentieth. Many Texans are awakening to the fact that Texas has fallen behind on the pro-life front. Ten states currently have heartbeat bills. Regarding this, Sen. Hughes has said, “We have to admit Texas is behind. This bill will protect the lives of our most precious Texans starting at the moment that little heart is beating.”

Many young pro-lifers showed up to testify on behalf of the unborn. According the Sarah Zarr from Students for Life of America, the Senators leading the public hearing on the eight ordinances were surprised and intrigued by the amount of young people being advocates for the unborn. Actions like this break the stereotype that Millennials and Generation Z are overwhelmingly either progressive or apathetic. Zarr said, “I’m telling you, you could see the senators change their demeanor and listen closer when the students testified.”

In fact, so many pro-life advocates showed that some accused the Senate Committee on State Affairs hearing as being “one-sided.” The Dallas Morning News reported:

“Largely missing, though, were abortion rights advocates. In a rare occurrence, the overwhelming majority, if not every person testifying, either spoke in support of several abortion bills or encouraged the committee to take further steps toward outright abolishing the procedure.”

Groups speaking on the bills included Texas Right to Life, Students For Life of America, Concerned Women For America, Texas Values, Human Coalition, Right To Life of East Texas, and Abolish Abortion Texas. Of the groups the only group which spoke against Senate Bill 8 was Abolish Abortion Texas who believed the bill did not go far enough. However, even Abolish Abortion Texas’ criticism was limited as they did support the fact that the bill stated that the pre-Roe statutes in Texas, which criminalize abortion unless the mother’s life is in danger, have never been repealed. The Heartbeat act reads, “The legislature finds that the State of Texas never repealed, either expressly or by implication, the state statutes enacted before the ruling in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), that prohibit and criminalize abortion unless the mother's life is in danger.” 

Other bills which passed out of the Senate Committee included Senate Bill 1173 known as the Preborn Non-Discrimination Act (PreNDA) and Senate Bill 1647 which is known as the Texas Abolition Strategy.