Texas Values Joins Legal Brief Asking the Supreme Court to Overturn Roe v. Wade

This week Texas Values and 21 other organizations filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.  Jonathan Saenz, president and attorney for Texas Values, made the following statement:

"Texas Values is proud to be one of the 22 state policy organizations that filed a brief this week in response to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case.  The Dobbs lawsuit was filed by an anti-life group challenging Mississippi’s law banning abortions after 15 weeks and is set to appear before the Supreme Court.  We are encouraged by the collaboration of state policy organizations across America that want to overrule Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, return the question of abortion to the states, and are working to make abortion unthinkable."
 

Texas Values on Fox News to Discuss the Heartbeat Act and an Overturning of Roe

This week, almost 230 Republican lawmakers asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade during the upcoming term. On July 29, Mary Elizabeth Castle, Policy Advisor at Texas Values appeared on Fox to discuss the Texas Heartbeat Act and what would happen if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.  Ms. Castle said: 

"We're absolutely supportive of our representatives asking the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.  It gives each state their own lawmaking authority on the issue of abortion…This really is nothing new, for the past several decades pro-lifers of all demographics, all political backgrounds have been urging the Supreme Court to reconsider a decision that has killed generations of children… We’re just happy that people across the globe, especially in the U.S. are waking up to the issue of life and standing for life."
 

Texas Values in the National Catholic Register Discussing the Texas Heartbeat Act

Texas Values president Jonathan Saenz did an in-depth interview with the National Catholic Register about the Texas Heartbeat Act and its private enforcement mechanism.  Here is one excerpt from the interview:

“Abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood really make a living out of challenging pro-life laws like the heartbeat law in court before they ever go into effect. These are often called preenforcement challenges,” he said, noting that when the government is involved in the enforcement of a law, it is required to protect against any violations of constitutional rights.  

“I don’t believe there’s a constitutional right to abortion, but that is what our case law is for now, which is followed by judges; so in order for there to be a violation of the so-called constitutional right to an abortion, the government would have to restrict or take that away,” he explained. “The Texas heartbeat law does not work that way; the government is not involved in it. It’s civil actions by private citizens that hold the abortion doctor accountable in court.”

Said Saenz, “When you don’t have the government involved in enforcing this law, you lose the ability to have that legal argument that there’s a constitutional violation in bringing up preenforcement challenges.”
 

We want to thank Greg McCarthy, Policy Associate at Texas Values and our summer interns Madeleine Roberts and Maddee Williams Koeller for their fantastic work in the office and on the ground at the State Capitol.  We wish them all the best in their future endeavors.