(LifeSiteNews) — The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center has canceled a planned speech by a third-trimester abortionist following public outcry and a reminder of relevant state law.
The College Fix reports that the center had invited New Mexico abortionist Shelly Sella to give a talk on a “physician’s perspective on third-trimester [so-called] abortion care, ethics, and patient centered medicine.” She is the author of a book collecting “Stories of Third Trimester Abortion Care.”
When word of the event started to spread, several individuals and organizations spoke out in protest, including local candidate Jim Baxa, the school’s Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter, and Right to Life Across Texas director Mark Lee Dickson.
On top of the usual moral arguments against promoting abortion, especially at a taxpayer-funded educational institution, critics noted that it is illegal in Texas to promote illegal activity on government property.
“Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center evaluated the request and determined that it is not in the best interest of the university to host this event on campus,” the health center confirmed.
“I am elated that Texas Tech has taken this action,” said TPUSA Texas Tech president Preston Parsons. “Under the leadership of Chancellor Brandon Creighton, Texas Tech has upheld truth and stands for what’s right. Turning Point USA at Tech will ALWAYS be vehemently pro-life, I would like to thank all of those who have fought, and will continue to fight, with us to protect the sacred lives of the unborn.”
The vast majority of abortions are illegal in Texas, but the state is still dealing with the problem of out-of-state actors using pills to circumvent Texas law, facilitating abortions that take place completely in private. Last May, the Texas Senate passed the Woman and Child Protection Act, which makes it broadly illegal to “manufacture, possess, or distribute an abortion-inducing drug in this state” as well as to help facilitate their acquisition. The Texas House did not take up the bill before the legislative session ended in June; it was later taken up in special session and signed in September. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is also attempting to sue abortionists from other states who have shipped abortion drugs into Texas.
Texas is one of 13 states currently banning all or most abortions. But the abortion lobby continues to work feverishly to preserve abortion “access” via unregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and embedding abortion “rights” in state constitutions.
