Texas
Ranking: 14
As a result of aggressive legislative action over the past several years, Texas has become one of the most protective states in the nation. It maintains comprehensive protections for women and the unborn and has appropriated millions of dollars to supporting abortion alternatives, while denying taxpayer funding to abortion providers.
Abortion:
- Texas possesses an enforceable abortion prohibition should the U.S. Constitution be amended or certain U.S. Supreme Court decisions be reversed or modified.
- A third-trimester abortion may not be performed on a viable fetus unless necessary to preserve the woman’s life or prevent a “substantial risk of serious impairment” to her physical or mental health, or if the fetus has a severe and irreversible abnormality. Additionally, a second law provides that a third-trimester abortion may not be performed on a viable fetus unless necessary to prevent “severe, irreversible brain damage” to the woman, paralysis, or if the fetus has a severe and irreversible “brain impairment.”
- A physician may not perform an abortion on a woman until at least 24 hours after obtaining her informed consent and after informing her of the nature and risks of the proposed abortion procedure, including the gestational development of the unborn child and available assistance from both public and private agencies. Counseling must be in-person if a woman lives within 100 miles of the abortion facility.
- The state also explicitly requires a physician to inform a woman seeking abortion of the abortion-breast cancer link.
- Texas requires the performance of an ultrasound before an abortion. The abortion provider must display the ultrasound image, make audible the heart auscultation, and provide a medical description of the images depicted in the ultrasound image.
- Texas prohibits insurance companies from coercing a woman’s abortion decision through force or by threatening adverse alteration to an insurance plan.
- A physician may not perform an abortion on an unemancipated minor under the age of 18 without the written, notarized consent of one parent or a guardian, unless there is a medical emergency or the minor obtains a court order.
- Texas has enacted comprehensive health and safety regulations for abortion clinics. These regulations are based on national abortion care standards and cover such areas as clinic administration, sanitation standards, patient care, post-operative recovery, and proper maintenance of patient records. Further, abortion providers must maintain hospital admitting privileges.
- Only a physician licensed in Texas may perform an abortion.
- The state has an enforceable abortion reporting law, but does not require the reporting of information to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The measure pertains to both surgical and nonsurgical abortions and requires abortion providers to report deaths that occur in their facilities as a result of abortion, as well as short-term complications.
- Texas follows the federal standard for Medicaid funding for abortions, only permitting the use of federal or state matching Medicaid funds for abortions necessary to preserve the life of the woman or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest
- The Texas Supreme Court has upheld a law limiting taxpayer assistance for abortion to cases where the abortion is necessary to preserve a woman’s life or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.
- Funds administered under the “Maternal and Infant Health Improvement Program for Women and Children” cannot be used for abortions, except in cases of life endangerment.
- State agencies may not contract with entities that perform or promote elective abortions or are affiliates of entities that perform or promote elective abortions under a “Women's Health Care Services” project (family planning funding).
- In 2011, Texas enacted new laws prohibiting state contracts with entities that perform elective abortions. The restrictions have been challenged in both state and federal courts.
- Texas requires that physicians providing “medical abortion” be able to do the following: accurately date a pregnancy; determine that the pregnancy is not ectopic; and provide surgical intervention or provide for the patient to receive a surgical abortion. The abortion facility is to ensure that the attending physician, an advance practice nurse, or a physician assistant has obtained and documented a pre-procedure history, physical exam, and laboratory studies (including verification of pregnancy). The patient must be informed of the risks and benefits of the procedure and the possibility that a surgical abortion may be required.
- Texas continues to allocate millions of dollars to the mission of pregnancy care centers and others providing abortion alternatives.
- The state maintains a “Choose Life” license plate program, the proceeds of which benefit abortion alternatives.
- Under Texas law, the killing of an unborn child at any stage of gestation is defined as a form of homicide.
- Texas defines a nonfatal assault on an unborn child as a criminal offense.
- Texas allows parents and other relatives to bring a wrongful death (civil) lawsuit when an unborn child at any stage of development is killed through the negligence or criminal act of another.
- Under Texas law, a “living human child born alive after an abortion or premature birth is entitled to the same rights, powers and privileges as are granted by the laws of [Texas] to any other child born alive after the normal gestational period.” Thus, the state has created a specific affirmative duty of physicians to provide medical care and treatment to infants born alive at any stage of development.
- The state defines substance abuse during pregnancy as “child abuse” under civil child-welfare statutes. The state has also created a task force charged, in part, with advising on potential criminal liability for a woman who exposes her unborn child to controlled substances.
- In 2009, Texas appropriated $5 million in state funding for adult stem-cell research.
- Texas does not prohibit human cloning or destructive embryo research. Further, it does not prohibit fetal experimentation outright, but it does include “fetal issue” in its ban on the sale or transfer of “human organs.”
- The state Department of State Health Services publishes a brochure related to umbilical cord blood donation, and physicians are to provide the brochure to their pregnant patients.
- Texas maintains no meaningful regulation of assisted reproductive technologies, but the “Uniform Parentage Act” does include “donation of embryos” in its definition of “assisted reproduction.”
- Assisted suicide is a felony in Texas.
- A physician, nurse, staff member, or employee of a hospital who objects to participating directly or indirectly in an abortion may not be required to participate in an abortion.
- A healthcare provider’s conscientious objection to participating in abortions may not be a basis for discrimination in employment or education. A person whose rights are violated may bring an action for relief, including back pay and reinstatement.
- A private hospital or healthcare facility is not required to make its facilities available for the performance of an abortion unless a physician determines that the woman’s life is immediately endangered.
- Texas currently provides no protection for the rights of healthcare providers who conscientiously object to participation in human cloning, destructive embryo research, or other forms of immoral medical research.
- In Texas Medical Providers v. Lakey, the state defeated a legal challenge to the state’s ultrasound requirement.
- Texas filed suit in federal court after the Obama Administration removed federal funding from the state because it will not fund Planned Parenthood.
- Abortion providers filed suit in state court challenging a 2011 state law that essentially defunds abortion providers.
- Texas did not hold a regular legislative session in 2012.
- Abortion Mandate Opt-Out Act
- Women’s Health Defense Act
- Abortion Patients’ Enhanced Safety Act
- Abortion-Inducing Drugs Safety Act
Abortion
- Child Protection Act
- Joint Resolution Commending Pregnancy Care Centers
- Human Cloning Prohibition Act
- Destructive Embryo Research Act
- Prohibition on Public Funding of Human Cloning and Destructive Embryo Research Act
- Healthcare Freedom of Conscience Act
