'Abortion is murder,' and Republicans in Texas are open to punishing it with death penalty: Report | CPT PPP Coverage

“Abortion is not healthcare, it is homicide,” believe Republicans in Texas, and they are open to imposing the death penalty on those who provide the procedure.

Delegates to the Texas GOP convention, over the weekend, voted on a 2024 party platform that announces, “Abortion is not healthcare; it is homicide,” and wants to overturn a state law that bars prosecuting a person who performs an abortion from being charged with homicide. 

Instead, the platform demands laws that would “abolish abortion by immediately securing the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilisation.” 

In doing so, it’s following an uncompromising wing of the anti-abortion movement known as “abortion abolitionists.” 

Mainstream anti-abortion movements, generally, do not support punishing the women who seek abortions, however, abolitionists insist that if the fetus is a person, then the provider and the patient are both killers and deserve to be treated as murderers.

There was no mention of explicitly punishing the people who try to get an abortion, which means that the fate of abortion seekers remains unclear.

In the past, Texas legislators have gone to the extent of introducing bills which sought to impose death on abortion patients but hit a deadlock.

Now, even if the law does not punish abortion-seeking women, it does bring with it lots of other implications for the Texas law, including cutting off access to in-vitro fertilisation.

Texas is home to one in 10 American women of reproductive age and has long been a testing ground for much of the nation’s most restrictive reproductive rights legislation. As per The Guardian, the state’s laws about abortion and clinic regulations have even been a model for the passage of such bills in other states far outside of Texas.

The platform for the Texas GOP, which stretches to over 50 pages, also talks about other hot-button issues, including homosexuality, which it describes as an “abnormal lifestyle choice”.

It also equates giving minors gender-affirming care as “child abuse.” 

Among other things, it calls for the reversal of recent military base name changes to “publicly honour the southern heroes.” It supports “affirmation of God, including prayer, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments being returned to our schools, courthouses, and other government buildings”.

While the Texas GOP has voted on the proposed platform, the votes are still to be counted. The party, as per the Guardian report, hasn’t said whether the platform has been formally adopted or made any statement regarding its position on abortion. 

In any case, ideas adopted by the GOP are not a law-making agenda. They are not guaranteed to become law—considering that the next time the Texas Legislature convenes will be in January 2025.

(With inputs from agencies)

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