Latest news with #SenateBill2880
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Senate push to ban abortion pills in Texas was blocked in the House: A 'political decision'
A sweeping GOP-led proposal to crack down on abortion pills in Texas died without a House vote Tuesday, angering anti-abortion Republicans, relieving Democrats and potentially setting the stage for future electoral and legislative battles. Senate Bill 2880 would have allowed private citizens to sue organizations that mail drugs like mifepristone and misoprostol to patients in Texas for $100,000 or more per violation, mirroring the enforcement mechanism in a 2021 law that opponents dubbed the 'bounty hunter' ban. The measure also would have empowered the Texas attorney general to enforce the state's criminal abortion laws, including a ban originating in 1857, by suing violators on behalf of "unborn children of the residents of this state." Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, authored the bill. Both chambers held exhaustive, hours-long hearings on the legislation in April, and the bill passed the Senate on a party-line vote nearly a month ago. But after the measure advanced out of a House committee on Friday, it got stuck in administrative limbo and never reached the panel that sets floor calendars. The lower chamber's most fervently anti-abortion Republicans slammed House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, and his leadership team for failing to advance the bill. "If we can't pass a bill to protect the most innocent Texans, then what are we here for in the Republican-led Legislature?" asked Rep. Nate Schatzline, R-Fort Worth, on Friday. Texas Right to Life director John Seago also criticized House leadership, telling the American-Statesman on Wednesday that he's "extremely disappointed" the bill didn't pass. In response, Burrows' press secretary, Kimberly Carmichael, pointed to this session's passage of a ban on taxpayer-funded abortion travel as evidence that "protecting innocent life and promoting the health of Texas families will always remain a top priority for the House." "Texas has the strongest pro-life protections in the nation, including laws that prohibit the mailing of abortion-inducing drugs into our state," Carmichael wrote in an email to the Statesman on Wednesday. "Speaker Burrows supports the state's ongoing legal efforts to hold those in violation of these provisions accountable." Anti-abortion groups hoped the measure would cut off the influx of abortion pills that persists despite the state's near-total abortion ban. Texans who terminate their own pregnancies cannot be held liable under current state law, meaning they do not face legal consequences for self-managed abortions. Democratic lawmakers, on the other hand, labeled the bill a 'bounty hunter bonanza' that challenged constitutional protections and judicial norms. The proposal would have prohibited state district judges from ruling on the law's constitutionality and allow those that did to be sued for $100,000 or more in damages. "These bills are designed to isolate women, threatening the family, friends, doctors, organizations, lawyers and judges they might turn to for help," said Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, during a floor debate in April. The bill's fate reflects a "political decision" on the part of House leadership, said Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist who specializes in Texas politics. Polls show that Texans overwhelmingly oppose the state's current abortion ban, which makes no exceptions for rape, incest or fatal fetal diagnoses. At the same time, the majority of Texans do not support legalizing abortions up to 20 weeks, as was the case under Roe v. Wade, Jones added, citing a February poll from the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs. He posited that the availability of pills insulated Republicans from consequences over 2021 laws banning abortion. 'One of the reasons we didn't see as much blowback in 2022 and 2024 is because of the wide availability of medication abortion,' Jones said. 'If they cut off that route or close that pipeline, that could essentially transform abortion into a more salient political issue, which Republicans don't want.' In preventing a floor vote, University of Texas political scientist Jim Henson said, the House leadership shielded Republicans from a tough decision: either approve a bill that could hurt them in a general election or reject a proposal supported by the GOP base, which holds stronger conservative abortion views than most Texans and is active in primary contests. Burrows and other House leaders also likely prevented Democratic members from pulling out every stop to drag out debates on the bill, which could have killed other conservative priorities as the legislative clock ran out. "Burrows in particular and the House leadership have to balance dissent on the right with managing the opposition that played a big role in bringing them to power," Henson said. "They had to look at what the far-right was going to do and what the Democrats were going to do and make a judgment." Texas voters also lack appetite for the proposal's civil enforcement mechanism, according to an April poll of 1,200 registered voters from the University of Texas and the Texas Politics Project. Just 25% of survey respondents said they supported giving individuals the right to sue people who help bring abortion pills into Texas illegally, while more than 54% opposed such a measure. "Even among the most committed, strong Republicans, there's just not overwhelming enthusiasm for extending these kinds of bounty-hunter proposals that were pioneered here a few years ago," said Henson, who conducted the poll with his colleague, Joshua Blank. Henson noted that there was significantly more public enthusiasm for the concept behind Senate Bill 31, which would clarify that doctors can intervene when pregnant Texans face life-threatening conditions. The bipartisan bill comes after three women in Texas died after doctors hesitated or failed to provide abortions, as ProPublica reported. SB 31 was sent to Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday after clearing both chambers. But it wasn't a priority for anti-abortion groups like Texas Right to Life, Seago, the group's director, told the Statesman. "We made it clear to members: This is not a priority because it doesn't move us forward," Seago said. The group's only priorities were SB 2880 and SB 33, a measure to ban taxpayer funding for out-of-state abortion travel. One Republican state lawmaker suggested that passing SB 31, dubbed the "Life of the Mother Act" by Hughes, was a tradeoff in exchange for the restrictions promised by SB 2880. "The Texas House worked hand in hand in a bipartisan effort to pass the Life of the Mother Act," Rep. Mitch Little, R-Lewisville, said in a news conference Friday. "We think that that was a very noble thing to do. But there's a balance to this equation that has to be completed." The success of SB 31 and failure of SB 2880 suggests the GOP isn't as bullish on abortion rights as they used to be. Seago said members have become significantly less passionate about the issue since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 struck down the right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade. "We did see a huge drop off after 2022 in enthusiasm and passion for this issue and we've been dealing with Republican apathy ever since 2022," Seago said. "Some people think that we as a pro-life group still get a blank check. That's not the case." Austin Democratic Rep. Donna Howard, however, doesn't see Republicans as less interested in restricting abortion. "They've done what they can do," she said Howard, a leading voice on abortion rights who joined the Legislature in 2006. "They've spent a decade building this up, and now they have to kind of stretch to find additional things to do." Republicans succeeded in passing a number of other bills on "red meat" issues this session, including a requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted in every public school classroom, restrictions on school library books and property tax relief. But Seago said he believed House leadership could see a blowback in GOP primaries over the death of the abortion pill crackdown proposal. Abortion rights advocates, on the other hand, said they're focused on general elections. And while they're relieved that SB 2880 didn't make the cut, they remain wary of future efforts to crack down on the procedure. "Our numbers will keep growing while they're fighting over the next way to double down on their extreme abortion ban," said Shellie Hayes-McMahon, executive director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes. Asked if he would refile the same bill in the next legislative session, which convenes in 2027, Hughes, who authored SB 2880, did not respond. The bill's House sponsor, Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, also did not respond to the Statesman's request for comment. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Legislature: House lets abortion pill crackdown proposal fizzle
Axios
6 days ago
- Health
- Axios
Bill targeting abortion pills misses key deadline
An effort to limit abortion pills in Texas appears to have died in the Legislature. Why it matters: Abortion is already illegal in Texas, but Republicans this session turned their attention to medication abortion, which accounts for most abortions performed in the U.S. Driving the news: Senate Bill 2880 — a sweeping measure that allows lawsuits against those mailing, delivering, manufacturing or distributing abortion bills — sailed through the Senate last month, but did not receive a vote in the House before a key deadline. Senate bills must have received a vote in the House by Tuesday to move to Gov. Greg Abbott's desk. The legislative session ends Monday. Yes, but: It's not over 'til it's over. Measures can be resurrected at the last minute through amendments. What they're saying:"This is a significant failure from the House," Texas Right to Life president John Seago told the Texas Tribune. "When you look at the opportunity this bill had, it seems like there was a deliberate effort to slow the bill down, if not to kill it." Zoom in: More than three dozen Republicans signed a letter last week urging the House State Affairs Committee to vote on the bill so that it could move to the full chamber. The committee approved the measure, but too late in the legislative process to make it to the House floor before the clock ran out. The big picture: The Legislature has moved along several other abortion-related bills. SB 31, aimed at clarifying Texas' abortion ban, which includes an exception that allows doctors to terminate a pregnancy to save the pregnant person's life, is awaiting a signature by Abbott. SB 33, which bans a city from using taxpayer money to pay for abortion-related expenses, also awaits the governor's signature. Both Austin and San Antonio have allocated money to support people traveling for abortions out of state. The other side: "SB 31 doesn't undo the harm of the state's abortion ban, and it never could. No amount of 'clarification' can fix a fundamentally unjust law," Blair Wallace, policy and advocacy strategist for reproductive rights at the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement on the passage of SB 31.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Bill curbing the flow of abortion pills into Texas likely dead
A sweeping proposal to crack down on abortion pills is likely dead after it failed to meet a key deadline in the Texas House. The bill, which had support from state and national anti-abortion groups, was seen as the most aggressive attempt yet to stop the flow of abortion pills into the state. Senate Bill 2880 passed the Senate easily last month despite concerns from Democrats, but had languished in the House State Affairs committee before it passed out at the last minute. The report didn't make it to the committee that schedules bills to come to the House floor in time to meet the Tuesday deadline. 'This is a significant failure from the House,' Texas Right to Life president John Seago said. 'When you look at the opportunity this bill had, it seems like there was a deliberate effort to slow the bill down, if not to kill it.' The bill would have allowed anyone who manufactured, distributed, prescribed or provided abortion pills to be sued for $100,000, expanded the wrongful death statute and empowered the attorney general to bring lawsuits on behalf of 'unborn children of residents of this state.' The bill contained several unique legal provisions, including one that said the law could not be challenged in state court, prompting separation-of-powers concerns among legal experts. Any state judge who found the law unconstitutional could be personally sued for $100,000. Conservatives blamed State Affairs Chair Ken King, a Republican from Canadian, for sitting on the bill for more than three weeks before passing it out at the last minute. More than 40 lawmakers signed onto a letter calling on King to bring the bill up for a vote. 'If Chairman King kills a bill that would protect tens of thousands of innocent children from the murder that is abortion, Republicans will be forced to hold him accountable,' said Rep. Nate Schatzline, a Fort Worth Republican, at a press conference on Friday. King, a six-term Republican, is relatively moderate for the Texas House, which has become more conservative in recent sessions. While Texas Right to Life has been critical of his allegiance on certain abortion issues, even going so far as to endorse his primary opponents, other anti-abortion groups, like Texas Alliance for Life, have long supported him as an ally. King did not respond to a request for comment. Seago intimated that King would be in the running for Texas Right to Life's 'biggest disappointment' award, but said the bill stalling out reflected a larger issue with House leadership. He credited Speaker Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican, for his long-standing support on abortion issues, but said he didn't do enough to move the ball on this bill. 'For the speaker, it's not an issue of his values, it's an issue of his priorities,' Seago said. 'For something that is controversial like this, that is going to be a tough floor fight, you have to have the speaker not just say he's supportive of it, but actually push it.' In a session busy with other conservative priorities like school vouchers, THC, bail and voting, further restricting abortion pills fell down the priority list for some lawmakers, especially as a majority of Texas voters opposed authorizing private lawsuits against someone who provides abortion pills. After a bruising few years that saw the near-total banning of abortion in Texas, abortion access groups saw a sliver of hope in the failure of this bill. 'It wasn't so long ago that the Texas Legislature could pass any extreme anti-abortion law,' said Molly Duane, senior counsel with the Center for Reproductive Rights. 'This feels like a pretty radical change from just a handful of years ago.' With the deadline for bills to come to the House floor in the rearview mirror, some conservative lawmakers are assessing ways to get aspects of the bill tacked onto existing legislation, or taken up in special session, Seago said. But he acknowledged these are likely long-shot proposals at this point in the session, which ends Monday. 'A lot of conservative legislators are looking for any and every opportunity to walk away with pro-life victories,' he said. 'So as long as that political window remains open, we'll keep pushing it.' First round of TribFest speakers announced! Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Maureen Dowd; U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio; Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker; U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-California; and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas are taking the stage Nov. 13–15 in Austin. Get your tickets today!
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
A Texas bill to block abortion pills has died for now
A major Texas bill that was poised to offer a blueprint for abortion restrictions has likely died in the state legislature. Senate Bill 2880, a top priority for the state's abortion opponents, would have targeted people who manufacture, distribute, mail or otherwise provide abortion medication in Texas. It would have enabled private citizens to sue people who distributed or provided abortion pills in Texas for a minimum of $100,000. Backers said the bill was meant to hit organizations such as Aid Access, an abortion telehealth provider that helps people in states with abortion bans who want to terminate their pregnancies. But despite clearing key legislative hurdles — the bill passed the state's Republican-led Senate in April and received approval from a House committee Friday evening — SB 2880 was not scheduled for a floor vote in Texas' House of Representatives. Tuesday is the deadline for Senate bills to receive a vote in the House; the bill's omission means it will not make it to the governor's desk before the legislative session ends this week. 'It's very disappointing to see that it likely won't pass this session,' said Ashley Leenerts, legislative director of Texas Right to Life, which helped craft the bill and lobbied heavily for its passage. SB 2880 seemed poised to pass. The bill's Senate sponsor, Republican Bryan Hughes, chairs his chamber's influential state affairs committee, which oversees legislation affecting state policy and government. The bill had also been reviewed and approved by staff for Gov. Greg Abbott, Leenerts said. 'This has been Texas Right to Life's top priority since the session began,' she said. 'We're going to keep working and do our best. But it did seem like there had been support from leadership in the House, Senate and governor.' Components of the bill could move forward as amendments to other legislation or if Abbott, who opposes abortion, calls a special legislative session this summer. But multiple activists from Texas Right to Life said they are unaware of bills that could serve as an amendment vehicle for SB 2880's abortion medication restrictions. Abbott has also not indicated that he will summon the legislature back for a special session. John Seago, the head of Texas Right to Life, would not comment directly on the possibility of a special legislative session, but added, 'There's still a small window for other opportunities for this policy to get passed, and we're going to continue to push those.' 'We're the most stubborn, we're the most non-compromising pro-life group in Texas,' Seago said. About 1 in 5 abortions are now done through telehealth, with half for patients in states with bans on the procedure or restrictions on telehealth. The practice is a safe and effective way to end a pregnancy that does not require someone to visit an abortion clinic. The providers prescribing and sending medication are from states such as New York, Massachusetts and California, whose 'shield laws' protect them from out-of-state prosecutions. SB 2880, modeled after a six-week abortion ban it erected in 2021, aimed to put a stop to the practice by threatening providers with financially ruinous lawsuits. Abortion opponents in other states have voiced frustration that the prevalence of telemedicine abortion has seriously undercut their efforts to ban the procedure. Though a dozen states have banned abortion almost entirely, the number of abortions in the country has not fallen — thanks in no small part to the growing share of people who now get abortions through the mail. Abortion opponents have pushed for restrictions on medication abortion — and on telehealth specifically — at the federal level and individual state governments. But so far, none have successfully halted the practice. 'The anti-abortion movement knows if they want to stop abortion in the future, they have to stop pills, but historically, that's a hard thing to do,' said David Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University who has helped craft state shield laws. 'It's a hard thing to do to stop a drug. That's partly why the anti-abortion movement is flailing.' Even without legislation, Seago said his organization will continue to press for policies targeting medication abortion. 'There are things the attorney general, the governor's office, comptroller's office — there are things the Texas state government has power to do today that it has not done,' he said. 'We will continue to put pressure on those individuals. We don't sit on our hands for two years.' And the issue of mailing abortions to states with bans may be ultimately settled in courts. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a civil lawsuit targeting a New York-based doctor for allegedly mailing pills to a patient in Texas. In Louisiana, state prosecutors have pursued criminal charges. Those cases are still making their way through the courts, and will likely involve legal challenges to the shield laws abortion providers have so far relied on. The post A Texas bill to block abortion pills has died for now appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Texas GOP seeks to block legal challenges against abortion
Texas Republicans are rolling ahead with a controversial bill that seeks to further restrict abortion access in the state, while making it impossible for it to be challenged in state courts, despite Democratic objections. Senate Bill 2880 advanced through the state Senate and is now heading for a House vote, after being moved Friday out of the Committee on State Affairs, with its chair facing growing pressure ahead of a Saturday deadline. More than 40 House Republicans sent a letter to state Rep. Ken King, the chair, urging him to move the bill, while some held a last-minute press conference pushing for passage of the abortion bill and other conservative priorities. Republican state senators wrote in their own letter to King that existing laws were not enough to guard against abortions in the state, mainly due to the continued availability of medicated abortion. 'Texas is in crisis. The tremendous protections afforded to mothers and children by S.B. 8, the Heartbeat Bill (87R), and H.B. 1290, the Trigger Bill (87R), is subverted daily by bad actors who flood our state with dangerous and deadly abortion pills,' they wrote. 'This must end.' Texas is already among the most restrictive states on abortion. Laws enacted since Roe v. Wade was struck down have no exceptions for rape or incest, and physicians who violate the laws face potential fines and jail time. Women have died in the state because of the abortion law. Senate Bill 2880, if passed, would allow anyone who makes, distributes, prescribes or provides abortion medication or provides information on how a person can obtain an abortion-inducing drug to be sued for up to $100,000. 'It should worry every American,' said Texas state Sen. Nathan Johnson, one of the many Democrats sounding the alarm on the bill. 'It's absolutely an abomination from a lot of standpoints.' It's unclear if the bill will be passed during Texas's legislative session, which is slated to end June 2. Texas almost entirely banned abortion in 2021 after state lawmakers passed a bill prohibiting the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, before most women know they are pregnant. Maternal mortality in Texas rose by 56 percent in the year following the passage of the six-week ban, according to the research and gender policy nonprofit the Gender Equity Policy Institute. The Lone Star State has since fought to further restrict abortion access, most notably by attempting to punish abortion providers who mail abortion medication to Texans from states where abortion is legal. Texas became the first state to sue an abortion provider in a state with an abortion shield law late last year. In December, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued New York doctor Margaret Carpenter for allegedly prescribing and mailing abortion medication via a telehealth service. Senate Bill 2880 is trying to take the state's near-total ban on abortion further. Under the bill, those who provide abortion medication are liable to wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits from family members of those who undergo abortions. 'From the abortion perspective, it's like a Russian doll of a bill,' said Texas state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt (D). It also allows for the attorney general to file lawsuits against abortion medication providers, prescribers or manufacturers on 'behalf of unborn children of residents of this state.' 'It's a very scary abortion bill, but it also sets a precedent that reaches far beyond abortion,' Eckhardt said. Beyond the clear restrictions on abortion, Democratic senators are worried over language in the bill that seeks to make it impossible to challenge it as unconstitutional in state court. Democratic lawmakers argue it's a clear attempt by Republican lawmakers to make the judiciary system powerless in the state. 'I think that's unprecedented,' said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis. 'It's crazy that the bill says it can't be challenged in court, and then it's also crazy that they don't even want it to be challenged in court … you have to [be] writing a bill that you're pretty darn sure is unconstitutional to not want the Texas courts to look at it.' Democratic lawmakers, like Eckhardt, and reproductive-rights advocates worry that even if the bill doesn't pass, it will inspire future similar legislation in Texas and elsewhere. 'Texas has often served as a sort of litmus test for anti-abortion extremists. The very same lawmaker that came up with Texas' vigilante law banning abortion is now attempting the same with medication abortion,' said Nimra Chowdhry, senior state legislative counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights. 'State officials are intent on trapping Texans and ending all abortion access in the state, no matter the cost to people's lives. And we could see more like-minded states attempt the same.' Republican state Sen. Bryan Hughes, the bill's author, did not respond to questions from The Hill about the bill. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
