ustxtxb_obs_1981_04_17_50_00012-00000_000.pdf

through the session, and it is going to be a redistricting session. Do you really feel you can get that explained and understood by everyone and passed this session? I hope so, yes. You see, really, it’s not all that difficult when you once you have them understanding the idea of leveraging, and guaranteeing, because your funding is just building up through surpluses in the Treasury. The defea sance of bonds or eliminating state debt is now in the substitute. An alternate leaves that flexibility to the legislature, it doesn’t mandate it like it originally did. By legislation the legislature can then use the second portion, or the half of the surplus, to defease bonds, but they don’t have to. If they do, they can do it on an individual program like the Veterans’ Land Board, or they can do it on all the outstanding bonds. If they do one, they can make it into a rotating, revolving fund like the Veterans’ Land Board again, using it as an example, so that you could continue so that as those bonds mature that money plows right back into making additional veterans’ land loans. So you could build a program where it would operate without additional bonding need or a general revenue need if you so desire. But you could do it simply by a statute. Anti-Abortion Forces Gather By Jo Clifton Austin If anti-abortionist forces have their way, Texas will soon have its own version of the Hyde Amendment that will even further restrict the rights of poor women to terminate unwanted pregnancies. At present there are 20 bills aimed at limiting women’s childbearing choices pending before the legislature. A number of these bills are now sitting in a friendly subcommittee of the House committee on state affairs. Passage to the full committee and on to the floor is expected within the next few weeks. Rep. Bob Davis, R-Irving, has attached his priority number to H.B. 1140, a proposal to require physicians performing abortions to certify that the fetus is not viable; if the fetus is considered viable, then the doctor must certify that the life of the woman or the fetus is in danger. All abortions performed after the twentieth week of pregnancy would have to be attended by two phyicians, one for the woman and the second to care for the aborted fetus. Life-support equipment, an expensive item for hospitals and clinics, would have to be available in the room where the operation was performed. By blessing this bill with his priority number, Davis has assured that it will have smooth sailing onto the floor once it is approved by the state affairs committee. The chairman of that powerful group, Rep. Tom Uher, D-Bay City, is the sponsor of another measure representing a serious threat to freedom of choice. Uher’s bill, H.B. 1194, and H.B. 455 by Republican Tom DeLay of Houston both propose to outlaw abortions in all hospitals which receive tax dollars. Passage of such a measure would mean that abortions would not be performed in 12 APRIL 17, 1981 Texas hospitals, period, since virtually all such facilities receive some federal or state funds. Speaking for a coalition of antiabortion forces, Dr. Stephen Hotze told the House subcommittee, “Our goal is to restrict abortion as much as possible. Our intention is to shut down public hospitals from an abortional use.” Although the vast majority of abortions are performed in private clinics, there are still a substantial number of women most of them poor who terminate their pregnancies in public hospitals. For example, an estimated 1,000 abortions were performed in Bexar County Hospital last year. A ban on such abortions would not only affect the women conerned, but would also mean an end to teaching medical students how to perform the operation since all teaching hospitals receive tax dollars. Since Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, a meakIre prohibiting the use of medicaid funds for abortion except when pregnancy results from rape or incest or the woman’s life was in danger, the number of federally-funded abortions in Texas has dropped from an estimated 3-4,000 in 1976 to six in 1980. At least two speakers before the subcommittee in Austin urged legislators not to permit exceptions for victims of rape or incest in state legislation, despite the anguish of those women. TWO BILLS with particularly serious implications for doctors have been approved by the state affairs committee and are awaiting their turn on the House floor. H.B. 578 would prohibit abortions from being performed on women under 18 years of age unless the consent of one or both parents or a court order is obtained. This bill appears to be in defiance of a 1979 Supreme Court decision which declared a similar Massachusetts law unconstitutional. Under current Texas law, 16and 17-year-olds who do not live with their parents may obtain abortions without parental consent. It seems especially ironic that this bill is being considered at a time when teenage pregnancy is on the rise. The second bill would cause a doctor to lose his or her license and face criminal penalties for failing to get a signed consent form from each abortion patient. The form would contain “a description of the various stages of fetal development” and a list of alternative services. Both bills were sponsored by Rep. Bill Ceverha, R-Dallas, chairman of the subcommittee. A number of other proposals are considered to be more important symbolically than substantively. For example, H.B. 922, carried by Rep. Jerry Cockerham of Monahans, requires a “parent who consented to an abortional act to provide for the humane disposition or burial” of the fetal material. The legislation would not require such loving care for the material of a miscarriage. Violation of this act would be a Class A misdemeanor. ” THE BOTTOM LINE is to harass and intimidate both the woman and the physician,” says Jan Friese, lobbyist for the Texas Abortional Rights Action League, looking at H.B. 922 and other proposals. Friese also points out that several of the bills have serious implications for users of low-dose birth control pills and supporters believe the broad definitions of “abortional act” and “conception” contained in these proposals could result in banning both the pill and the IUD. As in past sessions, Friese observes, the basic intention of the sponsors of these bills “is to prohibit abortion in this state.” Those who oppose such a restriction on their reproductive choices stand warned.