AUSTIN, Texas — Since 2021, Texas Senate Bill 8 has banned nearly all abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest. But that could change in the upcoming legislative session.
State Rep. Donna Howard, a Democrat in Austin, has filed a couple bills with the hopes of creating these exceptions and providing further clarity on when physicians can perform legal abortions.
“To have such a strict abortion ban is detrimental to the overall health care for a lot of women,” Howard said. “We want to make sure that Texas women have what they need to get the health care they need so that not only they can be healthy, but their babies can be healthy, their families can be healthy.”
House Bill 257 would expand discretion for doctors on when they can proceed with legal abortions. Physicians would be able to rely on their “best medical judgement” to carry through with an abortion in various situations such as to preserve the mother’s life and fertility and where a fetus has been diagnosed with a lethal condition.
Howard, chair of the Texas Women’s Health Caucus, said numerous physicians have been hesitant on providing legal abortions in certain situations.
“A lot of physicians have felt like they could not intervene in medical complications. They can actually face losing their medical license, hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and actually go to prison for life,” Howard said.
Republican State Rep. John Lujan, who was recently re-elected to House District 118, has expressed openness to KENS 5, supporting legislation to allow abortions in cases of rape and incest. Howard's other piece of legislation she filed, HB 395, would create such exceptions.
But it’s unknown the level of support from other conservative lawmakers.
“I believe from things I’ve read, things I’ve heard, from my own constituents, that there is support for this kind of exception from both Republicans and Democrats. So I would welcome my Republican colleagues to work with me on this,” Howard said.
However, Jonathan Covey, policy director for Texas Values, an anti-abortion group, doesn’t share the same level of optimism when it comes to Republican lawmakers jumping on board with Howard’s bills.
“We will continue working to enforce our pro-life laws and ban the abortion pill in the state of Texas," Covey said. "We’re also going to look for ways to prioritize stopping taxpayer funding by municipalities and political entities for out-of-state abortions and then finally we’re going to work to make adoptions and foster care more affordable and more accessible for families in the state of Texas.”
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of women's reproductive rights advocates as it relates to Mifepristone, which is one of two FDA-approved drugs used in medication abortions, arguing the plaintiffs had no legal right to sue.