UTDPD Blotter

May 18 • UTD

PD captured four individuals on camera taking a UTD golf cart unauthorized between the hours of 9:30am and 11:00 a.m. near the Bioengineering Science building.

June 1 • UTD PD was informed by a student about damage to their parked vehicle, which occurred around 8:00 p.m.

June 8 • An unidentified male fled the scene after taking University cart 48 without permission and colliding it into a stone wall on campus at 3:45 p.m.

June 14

• An unaffiliated male was charged with theft of property at 12:33 a.m. on campus.

GOP legislative priority analysis

JIMMY TEELING

Texas GOP lawmakers passed most of the carryover priorities from the 2019 legislative session. However, it is disappointing that they could not finish passing the new priorities they set for this year and must save those leftovers for a special session.

In 2020, the Republican Party of Texas passed eight legislative priorities for the 2021 legislative session: election integrity, religious freedom, abolition of abortion, constitutional carry, monument protection, banning child gender modification, school choice for all and banning taxpayer-funded lobbying. When the session ended in May, our lawmakers had only managed to pass bills relating to the first five of those priorities.

Nevertheless, the Texas GOP secured three major wins this session, most notably Constitutional Carry, which conservative activists have been pushing for years. Following concerns that Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick would not allow a vote on the Senate floor, Constitutional Carry was passed by both chambers and signed into law by Governor Greg Abbott. The bill, which allows law-abiding gun owners to carry a handgun without a license, is a major step in the right direction for preserving our Second Amendment rights and puts Texas on par with several other conservative states.

The legislature also took steps to protect churches from being forced to close, as happened in Harris County near the start of the coronavirus outbreak.

HB1239, authored by McKinney Representative Scott Sanford, sponsored by Senator Angela Paxton and now signed into law by Abbott, prohibits the government from closing places of worship in Texas. SJR27 takes this a step further, proposing this law be enshrined in the Texas Constitution. Texans will have the opportunity to vote in support of this constitutional amendment this November.

The last major achievement of Republicans this session is passing the heartbeat and Roe v. Wade trigger bills. These bills, now signed by Abbott, protect the unalienable rights of children who cannot protect their liberties themselves while also rightfully protecting mothers from punishment. The heartbeat bill prohibits physicians from conducting an abortion if they can detect the child’s heartbeat, with appropriate exemptions. The Roe v. Wade trigger bill, on the other hand, would ban abortion from conception until birth if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade. This bill also establishes criminal penalties up to a first-degree felony for physicians performing abortions; however, penalties established by both laws only apply to the physician conducting the abortion, not the mother.

Despite these victories, many conservatives left this session feeling sour due to several other important priorities dying this session. The most extreme example of this is SB7, the Senate’s omnibus election integrity bill. This 67-page bill – deemed by President Joe Biden to be “unAmerican” and “an assault on our democracy” – encapsulated Republicans’ most sweeping election integrity laws this session. SB7 died in the House due to a disappointing walkout staged by House Democrats,

FATIMAH AZEEM Opinion Editor

“Our Creator endowed us with the right to life, and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott says as he signs Senate Bill 8 (the Heartbeat Bill) into Texas law. In doing so, he maintains his stay on the list of politicians who have used God as a justification for passing oppressive policy.

The bill at hand bans abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected, which generally occurs five to seven weeks into a pregnancy – before or around the average time women begin to learn they’re pregnant – and makes no exceptions for rape. The law will take effect in September, with private citizens expected to enforce it instead of the government. These citizens can sue abortion providers and those who assist with the procedure, even if they are not personally affected by it.

Abbott’s reasoning for signing SB-8 is entangled with an appeal-to-faith fallacy in which he equates what is godly with what is lawfully correct. While there are times when religious stipulations might align with secular principles, the two aren’t necessarily linked, so it is safest to keep faith out of policymaking. Laws exist to govern all Americans – some of whom are not religious or do not even believe in God – so justification for laws should use rationale from existing legal principles and be as objective and unbiased as possible.

SB-8, however, goes against this by violating Supreme Court rulings and principles of the legal system. It breaches Roe v. Wade and Planned

Religious appeal of SB-8 masks its ineffectiveness

Parenthood v. Casey – which give women the constitutional right to an abortion without excessive government restriction – and is hypocritical in the sense that under the bill, private citizens are free to sue abortion providers simply if they’re unhappy with their practices, but abortion providers would need to incur tangible harm from the bill to sue the government. Abbott’s appeal-to-religion fallacy also masks the reality that the bill likely won’t even effectively reduce abortion rates. The women who seek out abortions aren’t doing so because they enjoy it; it’s a last necessary resort, and restricting access to it won’t reduce the demand for it – it’ll just make abortion less safe as women seek alternatives. For abortion rates to actually decrease, the legislature needs to address the underlying causes. A study published by the Guttmacher Institute said there was an estimated 7% reduction in national abortion rates from 2014 to 2017 when women had more access to affordable long-acting birth control. Similarly, a study from the Washington University School of Medicine showed a significant drop in abortion rates from the national average, when the nearly 10,000 participants in the study had access to either short or long-acting birth control. Despite evidence that access to affordable contraceptives helps decrease abortion rates, Texas – which has the ninth highest teen birth rate in the country – is one of only two states in the nation that doesn’t cover birth control on children’s health care plans. Texas also places a higher priority on teaching abstinence-before-marriage (which, like SB-8, has a basis in religious ideology) instead of contraceptioned in sexual education, even though the latter is demonstrated to be more effective in preventing unplanned pregnancy. Accessible contraceptives and comprehensive sexual education are supported ways to help reduce abortion rates, not a heartbeat bill, which serves to harm women and help no one.

Religion shouldn’t be the only metric of sound policy, and SB-8 fails to stand on its own merits under any other standard. While the Heartbeat Bill is