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INTERVIEW BY JACKSON ALLERS: We're here to talk about the 78th Texas Congressional Session with Texas Observer's legislative correspondent, Dave Mann. In particular our discussion focuses today on legislative initiatives that could aversely affect millions of low to middle income Texans as highlighted by the current edition of the Texas Observer magazine. This month's Texas Observer features an article on the erosion of the Roe vs. Wade [U.S.] Supreme Court decision, legalizing the woman's right to choose abortions. The article called "Chipping Away at Roe" [By Rachel Proctor in the Feb. 14, 2003 issue] notes that as many as 70 percent of Texans support Roe vs. Wade, but the congress is made up of a significant amount of committed pro-lifers, including Lt. Governor David Dewhurst. Dave Mann, What's on deck that could affect Roe vs. Wade in this legislative session? Mann: Well there are a number of bills that essentially try to make it harder for especially poor and rural women to have access to an abortion. One of the main ones is HB 15 sponsored by Rep. Frank Corte from San Antonio. Basically this requires that a woman who wants to have an abortion has to receive a certain amount of information about fetal development, the risk of abortion and what all her options are. And the real stickler here is that she has to receive this information 24 hours in advance. A lot of pro-choice groups say that this is a real problem especially for rural women who have to travel long distances to get an abortion. Imagine having to drive all day to an abortion clinic to receive care. You've got to receive this information 24 hours in advance. You've got to go home and come back tomorrow. It becomes especially egregious when you've got only 15 counties out of 254 in Texas that actually have an abortion provider. So you do have a lot of rural women that have to travel long distances to get these services, and throwing in a 24-hour waiting period, which is what it amounts to, can really be a road block." Allers: What other pieces of legislation are also on deck that could affect Roe vs. Wade? Mann: Well Ray Allen, a representative from Grand Prairie has a bill HB 246. This is an interesting kind of approach ... what some people would call a run around Roe vs. Wade. This bill looks to define an unborn fetus as an individual and if anybody does anything that would cause the termination of this pregnancy ... outside of an abortion, the bill specifically says, still specifically exempts abortion from this, but if they do anything to cause the termination of this pregnancy, they can be charged for murder of the unborn child. Now Representative Allen claims quite vociferously that this has nothing to do with abortion, and it has to do if the pregnant woman is attacked and the child that she is carrying is damaged in a certain way that it causes its death, the attacker can be charged with the unborn child's murder. That's what he says it is for, but obviously pro-choice people say this is an end-runaround to try to incrementally try to start defining a fetus as a person and to start chipping away at abortions through that conduit. If you believe that, well, [laughs] we might have a [legal] brief to say ..." Allers: Well how about House Bill 383 which wants to eliminate civil liability for health care providers that work in free clinics. Wow, that's good for the poor. So if you're poor and your leg is amputated and it's the wrong one, well ... oh well. I guess you can't do anything about that according to this bill. Could you speak to that a little? Mann: Well one of the main thrusts of this session is going to be medical malpractice and reducing the number of so-called frivolous lawsuits filed against doctors. That's been an emergency issue identified by Governor Perry. The legislative leadership is big on reducing medical malpractice. This is a crisis that has been identified, even though some data shows that medical malpractice lawsuits are on the decline. And this bill is obviously in that family." Allers: Now we have House Bill 166 introduced by Republican Representative Bob Griggs. He wants a "virtue" component to Texas lesson plans. What do you think about that? Mann: Well the problem with this is defining what exactly is virtue. Of course, making your voice heard, these kind of things, is not included. One of the more funnier parts of this bill is that he wants virtue -- he's got a whole list of words that he wants included: Diligence and faith and purity and reverence, and those are some examples. And he wants these included in every lesson plan. Allers: It's the secular, graduation-ceremony-national-anthem-halftime-of-the-Super-Bowl type of reverence? [This was how the Observer's Bad Bills Girl, who rises vampire-like from hibernation every two years to suck the blood from vile or absurd state legislation, described the bill in her Feb. 14 column for the Texas Observer.] Mann: Yes. Allers: So that's not God's Country reverence. That's rah-rah reverence. Mann: Well, cause he doesn't want this bill running into any of those anti-religious crazies you know, out there ... Allers: In the school district that he hails from, the Birdville Independent School District, some of the teaching objectives out there include "analyzing the contributions of leaders such as Phil Gramm. So I guess this is part of his virtue package as well ... [This information and more can also be found in the Texas Observer.] Mann: Well, we all know Phil Gramm is quite virtuous ... Allers: [Laughs] Mann: ... at least according to representative Griggs. How this bill could be practically implemented, Lord knows. Maybe we could combine them with representative Dutton's bill and beat them up a little bit and then teach them virtue." [Rep. Harold Dutton, Jr. (D-Houston) filed House Bill 374 which advocates informing parents of their legal right to submit their children to "corporal punishment" for "reasonable discipline" reasons. Dutton was quoted in the Texas Observer as saying, "I think giving parents the idea that they can use corporal punishment will result in a moral, better society."] Allers: I want to thank you Dave Mann for being with KPFT News on this our first installment of our legislative wrap-up. Join us next week as we feature Dave on some other bad bills. Thanks a lot Dave. Mann: Thank you. For KPFT News, with the Texas Observer, I'm Jackson Allers. [Brackets denote content that was added by Web Editor Brandon Moeller] E-mail Jackson Allers at jacksonallers@hotmail.com . This story was broadcast on February 14, 2003.