Bill filed to add rape and incest exemption to Texas’ new abortion restrictions
AUSTIN, Texas — Calling it a “common-sense fix” in response to criticism about the state’s new abortion restrictions, Republican Rep. Lyle Larson of San Antonio has filed a bill to add an exemption to the Texas “Heartbeat Act” for rape and incest survivors.
The call of the current special session in Austin does not include the new abortion law, but Larson is asking Gov. Greg Abbott to add it to the agenda.
Under the law, which went into effect Sept. 1, the vast majority of abortions have been blocked in Texas. The legislation outlaws abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, when a fetal heartbeat becomes detectable. Before the law went into effect,between 85% and 90% of abortions took place after this mark, according to Planned Parenthood.
Rather than criminal penalties, the law carries an enforcement mechanism whereby individuals are empowered to file lawsuits against anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion in Texas. This applies even in cases of rape and incest — with little exception.An amendment added to the bill by its House sponsor, GOP state Rep. Shelby Slawson of Stephenville, clarified that a person who impregnated an abortion patient through rape, incest or sexual assault could not bring a lawsuit under the measure.
Earlier this month, a reporter asked Abbott why such an exemption had not been written into the bill that passed during the regular session of the Texas Legislature earlier this year.
The law “provides at least six weeks for a person to be able to get an abortion,” the governor said in an answer that opponents of the legislation were quick to point out is false.
Although the new law prohibits people from seeking an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, they don’t have that whole period to make a decision and make arrangements for getting an abortion because it’s unlikely, and in many cases impossible, to detect and confirm a pregnancy before that time.
—The Dallas Morning News
$750,000 in cash recovered amid rubble of Surfside condo collapse. Victims will get it back
MIAMI — When the Surfside condo tumbled down in June, rescue workers painstakingly searched through the mountain of debris to recover nearly 100 victims and lots of personal property.
Among the buried personal items at the collapse site of the 12-story Champlain Towers South condo building were cars in the underground garage, as well as furniture, clothes, jewelry and photos of families and friends.
Miami-Dade County rescue workers also recovered cash — about $750,000 in total — some still neatly tucked into purses and wallets but most randomly scattered throughout the sprawling rubble.
“It can’t be tied to a particular floor, it can’t be tied to a particular unit and it can’t be tied to a particular owner,” said attorney Michael Goldberg, the receiver for the 136-unit Champlain condominium association.
“I guess that’s a little surprising — the amount,” Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman said Thursday during a regular hearing on a class-action lawsuit and other legal matters swirling around the partial collapse of the Collins Avenue condo building.
Fortunately, though the mostly loose cash was badly damaged, there is hope that it can be restored and its value redeemed by the U.S. Department of Treasury, Goldberg told the judge.
Goldberg said the Treasury Department has agreed to clean up the cash and issue a check for its total value to the receiver so that he can return the money to the owners or a general fund for victims. He said some of the cash found in the purses and wallets can probably be linked to their owners, but the vast majority of the money cannot be tied to anyone — so it will end up going into the general fund.
—Miami Herald
No more horse patrols in Del Rio, Texas, where Haitian migrants are staying under bridge
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has temporarily halted the use of a horse patrol unit along the Del Rio, Texas, border with Mexico amid public outrage over a photo of a mounted U.S. Custom and Border Protection agent chasing Haitian migrants.
The image showed the agent on a horse wielding what appeared to be ropes or reins while chasing Haitian migrants trying to get back to an encampment where thousands of asylum-seekers had gathered. It has led Haitians, immigration and civil rights activists for to call on the Biden administration to end its accelerated deportations to Haiti.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the policy change about the horse patrol was conveyed Thursday morning to civil rights leaders.
“That is something, a policy change that has been made in response,” Psaki told reporters. “There is an investigation the president certainly supports overseen by the Department of Homeland Security, which he has conveyed what will happen quickly.”
At its peak there were close to 15,000 migrants in Del Rio camping out underneath the bridge that connects the southern Texas city with Ciudad Acuña in Mexico. The majority of the migrants were Haitian, with families accounting for about two-thirds of the asylum-seeking population. There have also been “a low number” of unaccompanied children as well, DHS acknowledged.
—Miami Herald
Poland blinks first in LGBTQ spat after EU halts financing
Parts of Poland that declared themselves LGBTQ-free zones in defiance of European Union diversity policies began reversing their stance after Brussels halted as much as 126 million euros ($148 million) of pandemic aid.
The eastern Swietokrzyskie region voted this week to revoke a 2019 declaration targeting LGBTQ “ideology.” The Malopolskie region, in the south, may follow suit Monday after amending a similar resolution, the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper reported.
Five of Poland’s 16 provinces defied the EU with either anti-LGBTQ declarations or resolutions singling out sexual minorities.The European Commission sent letters to the regions’ governors this month warning that funding will be withheld unless the measures are withdrawn.
Other regions may now cave as the EU tries to push back against discrimination in member states and could link disbursement of billions of euros in financing to human-rights standards.
“This matter will most definitely be resolved,” Konrad Szymanski, Poland’s minister for the EU, said Thursday. “Nobody has any interest in discriminating against anyone in Poland.”
Local governments will choose the best way “to clarify this matter,” he said.
—Bloomberg News
