Sarah Valliere is an abortionist trying to bring New York, pro-abortion attitudes to Texas – and there is a powerful abortion lobby coming with her. The Pro-Life movement in Texas needs to be ready.
Valliere outlined her agenda in her USA Today opinion piece titled, “Texas made it hard to have my abortion. With Roe at stake, I’m going home to expand access.” Valliere is an abortionist training with the radical, New York-based group Physicians for Reproductive Health. In her article in USA Today, she uses her experience of undergoing an abortion at 17 to malign Pro-Life Texas laws.
According to Valliere, the commonsense Pro-Life protections in place in Texas in 2005 when she underwent an abortion made the life-ending procedure “nearly impossible to access.” The measures to which she refers are the 24-hour waiting period and the need for parental consent in an abortion decision.
Although Valliere scoffs at the 24-hour waiting period legally required between the time a woman receives the Woman’s Right to Know booklet and the time an abortion occurs, this waiting period is an important pause to ensure that a mother knows all of her options and has the opportunity for informed consent. An abortion decision is an irreversible, life-and-death decision. Giving mothers the opportunity to seek resources, understand her preborn child’s development, and escape coercion and abuse is vital to ensuring that an abortion decision is not made hastily or with a total lack of factual information.
Valliere bemoans the difficulty of scheduling an abortion due to this waiting period, but other women say the waiting period made the difference between life and death for their preborn child. One Texas woman says, “Because I had to wait, my daughter is alive today.”
Valliere acknowledges that part of the reason her unexpected pregnancy at 17 was especially difficult was that her family was in discord. While her parents went through what she describes as a “messy divorce that tore our family apart,” Valliere was not speaking to her father. Valliere sees this difficult circumstance as a reason not to require parental consent for minors to undergo an abortion, but her challenging circumstances demonstrate precisely why parental involvement is important. When her parents were distracted by their own personal issues, their daughter may have been vulnerable to abuse or rash decisions.
There is a well-documented history of the abortion industry ignoring or covering up abuse of minors. Children should not be left in the hands of the profit-driven abortion industry to make an irreversible decision.
Valliere reveals the root of her extreme bias in favor of abortion when she writes, “I owe my freedom and medical career to that abortion. So I’m going home to help give the women of Texas the same shot at their own futures.” Abortion activists have long made outrageous claims like this, saying that abortion is necessary for “living to our fullest potential.”
This is the lie at the heart of legal abortion: women need abortion. Abortion is never necessary to save the life of a mother, and women’s success does not require them to end the lives of their preborn children through the violence of abortion. Valliere’s belief that any success she achieves is the direct result of the decision to end her preborn baby’s life is tragic and deeply misguided.
There is no coincidence in the fact that Valliere’s abortion group is based in New York, one of the most pro-abortion states in the nation. In fact, New York recently passed sweeping legislation making abortion up to birth legal in a wide range of circumstances, allowing born-alive infants to be murdered following botched abortions, and allowing abortionists who are not doctors to commit abortions. Although pro-abortion politicians lit public buildings pink to honor this “advancement” for women, the legislation is not cause for celebration.
The radical abortion agenda espoused by New York anti-Life politicians and a New York abortionist heading back to Texas is not good for
Texas babies and women.
Abortion is not necessary for women, abortion harms women, and, above all, abortion takes an innocent human life. Pro-Lifers cannot allow radicals to lie to the American public with euphemisms like “access,” “empowerment,” and “choice.” The way we use language matters, because human lives are on the line.
