Latest news with #HB44
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Can Texas' abortion ban be fixed? Skeptics say an effort to "clarify" the law could make it worse
When Ashley Brandt and her husband learned she was pregnant with identical twin girls in 2022, she was ecstatic. But one twin's diagnosis with acrania — a rare, fatal congenital disorder characterized by the full or partial absence of cranial bones — sent Brandt's world into a grief-stricken tailspin. It also meant that the lives of both her and her viable child were now at risk. Brandt and her twins' circumstances didn't qualify for an exception under Texas' Senate Bill 8 abortion ban, which forced her to flee the state to access care. With the help of family and friends, Brandt would travel to Colorado for an abortion just two weeks before the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, which she said left her terrified that her loved ones or medical team could face consequences. "I look at my happy, healthy, 2 1/2-year-old daughter, and that enrages me," the Zurawski v. Texas plaintiff told reporters during a virtual press conference earlier this month. "From the moment she was born, I was immediately aware that the state in which my family and my husband's family has resided since the 1800s saw her and I as nothing more than collateral damage." Texas state lawmakers have united around two, bipartisan bills that seek to clarify the exceptions to the state's strict abortion ban and unify it's scattershot abortion laws. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, at least three women have died in Texas as a result of its abortion ban, which outlaws abortion at all stages of pregnancy and criminalizes providing an abortion with penalties including life in prison, $100,000-minimum fines and medical license revocation. With the medical exceptions better defined, lawmakers hope to ease physicians' hesitations in performing life-saving abortions and better protect the lives of pregnant people. But Brandt and other abortion access advocates say the bills, as written, won't go far enough. "SB 8 falsely implied that there would be medical exceptions by using vague language, and the average Texan doesn't realize the false implication until someone they love is in that impossible situation," Brandt said. "It should be no surprise that HB 44 does absolutely nothing to help Texans in situations similar to mine, but it further hurts situations with the looming threat of prosecution." Texas' Senate Bill 31 and its identical companion bill, House Bill 44, would clarify the types of medical emergencies that qualify as exceptions to the state's abortion ban, activities that don't constitute "aiding and abetting," and definitions of terms like "ectopic pregnancy." It strikes "life-threatening" from the existing law's language, allowing for a licensed physician to perform an abortion, "in the exercise of reasonable medical judgement," for a person with a pregnancy-related physical condition that puts them at "risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function." It also adds language mandating the physician to provide the abortion in a manner that "provides the best opportunity for survival of an unborn child" while establishing that the law does not require providers "delay, alter or withhold medical treatment" if it would result in serious physical impairment or death. Called the "Life of the Mother Act," both bills are still pending. Spokespeople for state Sen. Bryan Hughes and state Rep. Charlie Geren, Republicans and primary authors of the bills, did not respond to requests for comment. In a state Senate committee hearing in March, Hughes said that the proposed legislation would "remove any excuse" that doctors and hospitals may present regarding whether they can legally provide abortion care to pregnant patients. 'We want to love them both. There's a mom and there's a baby, and we want to love and respect and protect them both,' Hughes said during a Senate Committee on State Affairs hearing. 'That's really what this is about.' Geren stated that the goal of the bill would be to prevent deaths and serious impairments due to pregnancy-related medical emergencies when he introduced the bill earlier this month. 'It's simple: We do not want women to die from medical emergencies during their pregnancies,' Geren said during an April 7 House Committee on Public Health hearing. 'We don't want women's lives to be destroyed because their bodies have been seriously impaired by medical emergencies during their pregnancies.' But the Zurawski v. Texas plaintiffs argue that the bills do next to nothing to protect the lives of pregnant people who face life-threatening pregnancy complications or fatal fetal anomalies as proponents posit and threaten further harm to pregnant patients. "Instead of clarity, this bill normalizes it for a doctor to need legal consult to provide medical care. Instead of clarity, this bill normalizes lawyers giving doctors a training course on how to practice medicine. Where else in medicine does that occur?" said Lauren Miller, a plaintiff who faced the risk of kidney or brain damage during her pregnancy with twins, one of whom was non-viable. "How close to organ damage did I need to get before I could access the abortion that I needed?" Of greatest concern is the chance that the bill would revive an 1850s abortion ban that penalizes anyone who "furnishes the means" for an illegal abortion, the women said. They argued that, as it stands, the bill could criminalize people and groups helping pregnant people access abortion care outside of Texas and open the abortion patient up to legal penalty because it doesn't explicitly exclude pregnant people from criminalization. Other Texas abortion laws, by contrast, do explicitly protect pregnant people from prosecution for obtaining an abortion. The bills fail to address the "despair women face" when having to flee the state to receive abortion care, Kaitlyn Kash, another Zurawski v. Texas plaintiff, told reporters. "In fact, by opening the door to the [1857] law, these bills risk turning that darkness into a black hole, one that pushes families deeper into fear, isolation and grief." While Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other anti-abortion lawyers have suggested that the 1857 law was back in effect following the fall of Roe in 2022, multiple courts have determined that the pre-Roe ban was "repealed by implication" — the most recent example being a 2023 ruling from a U.S. district judge. Laura Portuondo, an associate professor of constitutional law with expertise in reproductive rights at the University of Houston Law Center, told Salon that the new bill, if enacted as currently written, would only have a marginal benefit for pregnant people in the state. "It will make it easier to get an abortion, say, for an ectopic pregnancy, and I do think eliminating this 'life-threatening physical condition' language could help at the margins," Portuondo said in a phone interview. "The Texas Medical Board is behind this, and they seem to think that this will create more certainty. I will say I'm not totally convinced that that's true." As written, the bill still contains a number of ambiguities that don't adequately clarify the requirements to warrant an exception, she said. A "serious risk of substantial impairment" doesn't convey what level of impairment is "serious enough" to qualify for an exception, while "reasonable medical judgment" creates more room for the state to challenge physicians' decision-making in abortion patients' cases. "That kind of vagueness continues to be a problem because there are such severe penalties," she said. "Really, when you have such severe penalties — lifetime in prison, hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, loss of a medical license — you need a really, really clear law, and this still doesn't get us there." Elizabeth Sepper, a University of Texas law professor who specializes in health law, said that even though lawmakers hope the bill will ease physicians' concerns, as written, it doesn't change the law in "any significant way" and mostly reiterates the precedent the Texas Supreme Court has already set. Whether the bill would even have its intended effect is also unclear, she said in a phone interview. "That's the million-dollar question, right? Do doctors in emergency departments change what they do if this bill passes? I don't know if the answer is yes," she said. "There are physicians who are already operating to the limits of the Texas abortion bans. They're going to continue doing that. This won't change that. So to the extent we have others who misunderstand or are too afraid of criminal sanction or chilled from giving information, does this law change what they're doing? I'm not sure because I'm not sure that the technicalities of the law are what is making physicians deterred from going to the limits of the exceptions." With Paxton demonstrating a willingness to threaten civil lawsuits or prosecution over out-of-state abortions, and former Texas Solicitor General Jonathan Mitchell seeking depositions from abortion funds, providers and alleged abortion patients, the bill doesn't appear likely to change the already hostile landscape, Sepper argued. Instead, SB 31 and HB 44 only offer the illusion that the Texas legislature is doing something to address concerns and recognize the myriad difficulties and complications people can experience while pregnant, she said. "The benefit of this law would be if it, in fact, accomplishes its goal," Sepper said. "It's still a draconian abortion ban; still has really, really narrow exceptions. This doesn't broaden the exception in any meaningful way." This piece has been updated to reflect that SB 31 left committee Wednesday morning.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
House Bill 44 aims to clarify exceptions to Texas' strict abortion law
The Brief A bill in the Texas House would provide clarity about medical exceptions to the state's restrictive abortion law. Supporters want clarity on which life-threatening emergencies would make it legally acceptable for a doctor to perform an abortion. Lawmakers heard testimony on HB 44 on Monday. DALLAS - After Texas lawmakers passed a near-total ban on abortions with no exceptions, many doctors feared they would be committing a crime if they intervened. House Bill 44 is a bipartisan bill that would clarify the law. But some argue it doesn't go far enough. What we know Dozens of people testified before the Texas House Public Health Committee on Monday, mostly in support of HB 44. The bill, authored by Fort Worth Republican Charlie Green, aims to provide clarity for doctors to know when they can step in during a pregnancy that has life-threatening complications. "The Life of the Mother Act has brought together all of the major pro-life groups, doctors, hospitals, Republicans, and Democrats," Green said. "We know women's bodies have been horribly injured because doctors and hospitals are afraid to provide abortions that could save their bodies. That's because some of the language in our current law is not clear to doctors and hospitals." The backstory For the past three years, since the near-total ban on Texas abortions went into effect, doctors and patients have faced uncertainty about the legal consequences. The lack of exceptions led to a lawsuit by 20 women. It was rejected by the Texas Supreme Court. However, the court also told the Texas Medical Board to provide clarity for doctors. The medical board said that's not its job, bringing the issue back to the legislature. What they're saying "This is not someone who is six weeks and driving to Planned Parenthood because they don't want their baby. This is a woman who very much wants her baby at 20 weeks and having a medical emergency where she has lost her child. Even if it's not fully dead yet, her child is in the act of dying and the only way she can survive to parent her other children is to accept that death, protect her life and that is what the bill seeks to strike a balance of," said Jennifer Alman, the executive director for the Catholic Conference of Bishops. The other side Some in the hearing worried that HB 44 would allow a loophole in the abortion ban. Some of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit also argue the bill does not go far enough because it doesn't account for fatal abnormalities of the fetus. Sarah Harrison was pregnant with twins. One of them had a fatal condition. "What if I got pregnant with twins again and I have to leave again? The trauma is real. It is real. It's intense. Of course, I feel scared to get pregnant in this state," she told lawmakers. "This bill does not include fetal abnormality. It does not include rape. But it does include a bipartisan approach to try to address the challenges. I heard you guys say not sick enough. This bill does an important thing that does say you do not delay treatment. This bill does try to address that delay in time," said Rep. Ann Johnson of Houston. What's next Lawmakers are still hearing testimony on the bill. There is also a companion bill in the Texas Senate. There appears to be enough bipartisan support to get it across the finish line. The Source The information in this story comes from State Rep. Charlie Green of Fort Worth and testimony given during Monday's Texas House Public Health Committee hearing on HB 44.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Medical exceptions for abortion addressed in Texas House Committee
AUSTIN (KXAN) — On Monday, the Texas House Public Health Committee took public testimony on a bill to clarify medical exceptions for abortion in the state of Texas. The Life of the Mother Act, or HB 44, clarifies some of the language in the current bill that dissuades doctors from performing life-saving care on a woman because it would require her to have an abortion. In doing so, it's hoped that physicians will feel more confident in acting on their reasonable medical judgment to provide this care. 'The Life of the Mother Act has brought together all of the major pro-life groups: the doctors, the hospitals, Republicans, Democrats, and people that are on both sides of the abortion issue,' said bill author Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, at the hearing. 'And it's simple, we do not want women to die from medical emergencies during their pregnancies.' Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Texas took steps to ban abortions throughout the state with few exceptions. In light of medical instances that created uncertainty about when it is appropriate to intervene to save the life of the mother or the fetus, proponents on both sides argue that the bill's exceptions remain too restrictive. The potential consequences are high. Doctors face up to 99 years in prison, a minimum fine of $100,000 and the loss of their medical license if found guilty of performing an illegal abortion. In addition, they could face expensive civil lawsuits under the Texas Heartbeat Act, also known as Senate Bill 8, which allows any citizen to sue anyone they believe performed or helped facilitate an abortion for a minimum of $10,000. 'HB 44 does not change the state's stance on elective abortion, it simply clarifies the law and provides additional protection when physicians exercise reasonable medical judgment to protect the life or the health of a pregnant patient,' said Dr. Deborah Fuller from the Texas Medical Association in her testimony. One of the ways the bill does this is by removing the phrase 'life-threatening,' clarifying that the exception to the state's abortion ban is when there is a threat to the life of the mother or a risk of the substantial impairment of a major bodily function. The phrase 'life-threatening' was a point of confusion for physicians who were unclear if 'life-threatening' referred to the immediate state of the patient or their state sometime in the future. The removal of this language would reduce hesitation in these scenarios. Brooke Knudtson Stroud testified about her experience with the consequences of this hesitation. Knudtson Stroud lost her pregnancy in 2023 after finding a near rupture in her fallopian tube. Despite showing warning signs and reporting them to her physicians, she was told her symptoms were normal until it was too late. 'Something I've learned through it all is I'm my only advocate and that's why I'm here to support HB 44. Because this isn't about politics, it's about common sense, making sure women like me—daughters, wives, aspiring mothers—get the care we needed,' said Knudtson Stroud at the hearing. In addition, the bill explains that physicians who exercise reasonable medical judgment when determining their course of action in these cases will not be subject to disciplinary action. The Public Health committee adjourned as the House convened in the chamber. They plan to reconvene later this afternoon. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
