Posted by
Dwayne Horner on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 6:06:50 PM
With Texas now in focus on the Democrats side, perhaps someone will ask them about this case in their Texas Presidential Debate:
The Texas Court of upheld a second conviction for the homicide of an
unborn child under Texas' Prenatal Protection Act.The case, Flores v. Texas (Case No. PD-0265-07), involved the double murder of twin unborn baby boys.
According to court documents, Gerardo Flores stomped on the abdomen of his pregnant girlfriend at 20-21 weeks of gestation and caused the babies to be born dead two days later. Flores was convicted in district court in 2005 on two counts of capital murder and received a life sentence The baby boys were named, given a funeral, and buried with headstones by the mother's family. Gerardo Flores appealed the conviction to the 9th Court of Appeals in Beaumont and finally to the Court of Criminal Appeals. Flores argued that he was merely trying to help his girlfriend abort the children at her request, that he should not be prosecuted for murder, and that the Prenatal Protection Act is unconstitutional. The Court disagreed.
Assistant District Attorney Art Bauereiss, who prosecuted Mr. Flores for the murders in Angelina County, wrote an extensive summary of the case available by clicking here.)
The first case before the Court of Criminal Appeals was in November 2007, when the Court unanimously upheld a conviction for the homicide of an unborn child by a third party against the mother's wishes. The case, Lawrence v. Texas, involved the double murder of a pregnant women and an unborn child. (For a docket detail click here.)
"We are very pleased with the Court's opinion," said Joe Pojman, Ph.D., Executive Director of Texas Alliance for Life (TAL). "The highest criminal court in Texas has again recognized that unborn children are individual persons worthy of protection from murder and assault the same as other persons already born. The Court essentially held that unborn children are babies." Texas Alliance for Life filed a scholarly amicus curiae ("friend-of-the-court") brief in the Court of Criminal Appeals to support the law's constitutionality.
Unborn children in Texas first became protected against crimes of homicide and assault in 2003 when the state legislature passed, and Governor Rick Perry signed in to law, the Prenatal Protection Act. The Court of Criminal Appeals' opinion, the second to address this issue, upheld the constitutionality of the new law. The Texas Legislature passed the Prenatal Protection Act in 2003 (Senate Bill 319), with the strong support of TAL and other pro-life organizations in Texas and over the objections of abortion advocacy organizations including NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, the ACLU, and the Texas Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates. (Click here for a list of organizations that testified on SB 319.)
Thank GOD!
h/t Texas Alliance for Life