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 Good morning Mr. Chairman and members, my name is Jennifer Allmon and I am the associate director of the Texas Catholic Conference. The TCC is the statewide association of the 15 Roman Catholic dioceses in our state and it is our responsibility to advocate for the public policy positions of the active Bishops of Texas.
First, let me begin by thanking you, Mr. Chairman, and the committee, for allowing me to testify today on HB 201 and HB 15. As many of you are aware, the Catholic Church teaches that life is a precious gift given to all of us from our Creator. It is a gift that should be nurtured and protected at all stages. Laws must be in place that protect the life of the unborn child, and that educate mothers who may not realize that the life in their womb is exactly that – a unique, irreplaceable human life.
The Texas Catholic Conference supports HB 201 and HB 15 as gradualistic approaches to reduce abortion rates in Texas by giving mothers access to their ultrasound images and to their unborn child’s heartbeat. It is our hope that providing this information to mothers will help them realize the humanity of their unborn children and choose life.
We support the following elements in a sonogram bill:
- Requiring a physician to provide printed material for a mother to review at least twenty-four hours before an abortion can be performed.
- Ensuring that the printed material includes a list of abortion alternative providers who provide services such as: free sonograms, adoption, or services that assist women through pregnancy, childbirth, and the child’s dependency.
- Establishing reporting requirements for abortions that are performed to save the life of the mother, in which case consent is not obtained.
- Requiring the revocation of a physician’s license if he or she engages in unprofessional conduct by violating this law.
- Changing the Woman's Right to Know law by requiring that a mother must have a face-to-face conversation with a physician, not a physician’s agent, twenty-four hours before the abortion procedure can take place. We believe that this standard of care allows mothers to be more informed about the risks and complications associated with abortion. We think such consultations will save lives. We know from our abortion alternatives programs that when mothers are fully informed about their pregnancies, they are more likely to choose life.
Ultrasound images provide mothers seeking an abortion with information at a level that cannot be substituted through brochures, a recorded voice mail message, or a discussion with a healthcare worker. These images can show a mother an animated view of her child, and may even show the child sucking a thumb, or even stretching or kicking, which provides compelling evidence that the unborn in the womb is a child and not simply a mass of cells or tissue. Requiring abortion providers to allow mothers to view their ultrasound image prior to an abortion is not a ban but simply a gradualistic approach to decreasing the number of abortions in our state.
I ask every member of this committee to support a sonogram bill moving forward that includes all of these elements.
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