COMMITTEE CONSIDERS CLARIFICATIONS TO ABORTION EXEMPTIONS

(AUSTIN) — State law regarding legal exceptions to abortion would be clarified to protect the life of the mother when it is endangered by a pregnancy under a law considered before the Senate State Affairs Committee on Thursday. Bill author and committee chair Senator Bryan Hughes of Mineola said that while the state has always recognized that ensuring the life of the mother has always been a recognized exception, he hopes this bill, SB 31, will clarify the issue. “Every pro-life measure Texas has passed has recognized that when the life of the mother is in danger, that is an exception.” Said Hughes. “The intent of this bill is to remove any excuse: when a mom is danger…that’s always been an exception that we’ve recognized.” The current list of medical exceptions was codified by the legislature in 2011. Testimony before the committee indicated that there are four different abortion bans in statute, adding to the confusion.

Senator Bryan Hughes of Mineola said his bill would make it clear that risks to the health of the mother are an exception to the state’s abortion ban.

Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the US Supreme Court, abortion has been illegal in Texas outside of a handful of exemptions. There have been a number of reported incidents, both in Texas and nationally, of women who died or came very close to it as healthcare professionals dithered over providing care out of fear of legal repercussions. SB 31 clarifies that doctors are allowed to perform abortions on women who, in their medical judgement, are facing death or severe injury unless the pregnancy is terminated. Two conditions, ectopic pregnancies and undelivered miscarriages, would be explicitly outlined in statute as conditions permitting abortion. The bill would also create legal training programs, for doctors and the lawyers that advise them, to understand how state law impacts their practice as regards abortion.

This bill was one of three abortion-related measures considered by the committee Thursday. The second, SB 32, by New Braunfels Senator Donna Campbell, would ban local jurisdictions from using public funds to pay for abortion related services, including logistical services that provide transportation, child care, food, or lodging to women seeking an abortion out of state. The state has already banned the use of public funds to pay abortion providers, but Campbell says logistical support remains a loophole through which tax dollars are used to pay for the procedure. “Let’s close this loophole and put a stop to taxpayer funded abortion travel expenses,” she said.

The third bill, SB 2880, also by Hughes, would add a new mechanism of enforcement against individuals or services outside of Texas who mail abortion-inducing drugs into the state. Medically-induced abortions are illegal in Texas, said Hughes, yet thousands of pills are still coming into Texas every year. Even when abortion was legal in Texas, he said, the standard of care involved a doctor’s supervision. “These drugs are ordered online, shipped to the mother’s door step where she’s left to have the abortion alone without any care from a doctor,” said Hughes. In some cases, he said, serious complications and even death can happen. This bill would introduce a new cause of civil action against on-line platforms that facilitate the order and delivery of abortion inducing drugs The bill would allow any Texas citizen to file a claim against a website that mails abortion pills to Texas or provides payment for those who do. It would be a defense, said Hughes, if the website owner was unaware their platform was being used in this way and took prompt action to stop it. The bill would also allow either parent of an medically-aborted child to sue for wrongful death, unless the conception was the result of sexual assault. “The rapist never has any rights, only liabilities, under this bill,” said Hughes. He also stressed that women who use one of these drugs to induce abortion face no penalties. “Nothing in this bill provides any lawsuit, or claim, or any harm to a mom,” he said.

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