Texas lawmakers are getting a second chance to protect the lives of preborn children who may have a medical abnormality.

Texas has a 20-weeks law that bars abortions at and beyond that point in pregnancy because the preborn babies can feel pain. But as Representative Matt Schaefer (R) of Tyler, Texas tells OneNewsNow, that does not mean all abortions are actually barred by the law.

Schaefer

“In Texas, unfortunately, we allow babies to be aborted late-term all the way into the third trimester if there is a severe fetal abnormality, even one day before birth,” he explains. “The people who are most discriminated against in Texas are people with severe disabilities in the womb.”

Yet Schaefer has heard countless stories about incorrect diagnoses, where preborn babies who were diagnosed with problems born healthy, or other stories of preborn babies facing life handicaps who nevertheless grow into happy and productive adults. So he is submitting a bill to allow those children to live.

“I carried this bill last session. I could not get a hearing in committee due to the Republican committee chair who blocked it,” the state representative reports. “But I got the exact language of the bill attached to a larger bill as an amendment, and when I got it on there, it passed with a large majority in the Texas House.”

But the measure failed for other reasons, so Schaefer has filed it again as a separate bill, and he is confident that if it reaches the House floor, it will pass.

The legislature, which meets every two years, goes into session in January.