Ken Paxton Stands by Testimony of Anti-Abortion Experts He Paid $500,000
The State of Texas is currently facing lawsuits over some of its abortion laws. Those that have been challenged include House Bill 2, which restricts access to abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and requires abortion clinics to maintain the same medical facilities as hospitals. The state is also being sued over the Fetal Burial Law, which requires clinics to bury remains from abortions and miscarriages.
To defend these laws, the Texas attorney general has paid anti-abortion advocates $500,000 to serve as expert witnesses in federal court. But the state has gotten very little bang for those taxpayer bucks, according to an analysis by The Houston Chronicle’s Alejandra Matos.
Matos says it isn’t abnormal for both sides of the abortion debate to use expert witnesses. But Paxton’s picks show up consistently in abortion cases, and they are usually marked by vehement anti-abortion views.
“They often aren’t medical doctors,” Matos says. “They’re ethicists, or lawyers, and they’re people who have very strong personal views and have voiced them in the public.”
Read more: http://www.texasstandard.org/stories/ken-paxton-stands-by-testimony-of-anti-abortion-experts-he-paid-500000/
