AUSTIN – Despite a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year overturning the state’s abortion restrictions, Texas lawmakers rejoined a battle over the procedure in the state Senate on Wednesday.

The anti-abortion campaign laid out the first of about 20 bills it plans to offer this session. Opponents will support their own legislative roster on topics such as sex education and the provision of accurate information to women who choose to terminate their pregnancies.

Melissa Conway, spokeswoman for the Texas Right to Life political action committee, said a measure that prohibits so-called “dismemberment abortions” is among her top priories for the legislative session.

“Essentially a live little baby is ripped limb by limb, live, before its death,” she said. “Every baby Texan should have protections in place.”

Critics slammed the inflammatory terminology and said the proposal, which was authored and laid out Wednesday by Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, bans the most commonly used abortion method performed in the second trimester.

“What we heard today drove home the fact that none of the bills was for the protection of women’s health and safety, which is the justification most have used in the past,” said Lucy Stein, advocacy director for Progress Texas. “They have pivoted to other justifications to see if they can make an end-run around a woman’s constitutionally protected right to abortion.”

A proposal by Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, bans donation of fetal tissue from elective abortions for research. It also copies a federal statute banning so-called “partial birth abortion,” or dilation and evacuation procedures.

Schwertner said he authored the measure because “it’s not being prosecuted at the state level, because it’s not a state law.” When pressed by Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, for how many cases of partial-birth abortion go un-prosecuted, he could not provide figures.

Explaining the bill’s focus on tissue from elective abortions, Schwertner referred to videos from 2015 that depicted Planned Parenthood leaders discussing the sale of tissue.  Watson pointed out those videos have since been discredited but Schwertner said they show a “clear” need for legislative action.

Fetal tissue sales are already illegal under federal law.

Watson also asked whether outlawing tissue donations from elective abortions will hinder research.

In a statement, said Trisha Trigilio, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said the bills “violate the constitutional limits on Texas’ ability to regulate abortion” and “would prevent doctors from using safe and proven medical procedures, and pressure women into revealing personal information to anti-abortion groups.”

Abortion rights supporters have yet to get hearings but their legislative roster includes a bill enabling members of some health insurance plans to get a year’s supply of prescription birth control at a time.

Another proposal eliminates a law requiring doctors to tell women seeking abortions that breast cancer is linked to the procedure. The National Cancer Institute has noted the weight of research doesn’t support the claim.

There’s also a bill eliminating a mandatory, 24-hour waiting period before abortions are performed.  And a bill filed on Tuesday would require schools to provide age appropriate education about human sexuality, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections.

That proposal, by Rep. Mary Gonzalez, D-Clint, would also instruct students on abstinence “as the preferred choice of behavior in relationship to all sexual activity for unmarried persons of school age.”

A recent report by the Texas Freedom Network showed that 80 percent of Texas school districts “either don’t teach high school students about birth control or offer no sex education at all.”

Texas has one of the highest teenage birth rates in the country.

Since Houstonian Margaret Sweeney teaches pre-K pupils, sex education is not on her lesson plan.

But she was in the Capitol on Wednesday with the Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry to sign a witness card opposing the anti-abortion legislation.

“Some of our areas of interest are reproductive health,” she said. “… Above all, we want to see education in the classroom before it gets to the point of unwanted pregnancies.”

John Austin covers the Texas Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jaustin@cnhi.com<mailto:jaustin@cnhi.com>.