7/27/2019 Court Rules to Protect Abortion Access for Most Women in Texas, But Upholds Restrictions on Medication AB

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October 28, 2013

Court Rules to Protect Abortion Access for Most Women in Texas, But

Upholds Restrictions on Medication AbortionRuling blocks provision that would have made safe, legal abortion non-existent for one in three Texas women

Statement from Melaney Linton, President & CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast:

Todays ruling protects access to safe and legal abortion for women in many parts of the state, but itputs ideology over science by banning a safe method of abortion for many women. This kind ofrestriction takes a personal, private decision away from women and their doctors. PlannedParenthood nurses and doctors are taking every step we can to ensure that women in Texas haveaccess to the highest quality health care no matter where they live."

BACKGROUND

The provisions challenged in court are part of a package of legislation which was signed by Governor RickPerry on July 18 following a series of special legislative sessions, but was opposed by 80 percent of Texasvoters, according to a poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. The law contains a separate provision,not a part of todays suit, that requires every health center providing abortion services to meet stringent,medically unnecessary building standards such as the specific hallway widths and the flooring and size of

janitors closets by September 2014.

Medical experts in Texas and across the country, including the American Congress of Obstetricians andGynecologists, Texas Medical Association, and Texas Hospital Association, publicly opposed provisions in thelaw because they provide no medical benefit to women and will actually jeopardize womens health and

safety.

The laws requirement that abortion providers obtain hospital admitting privileges could cause at leastone-third of the states licensed health centers providing safe and legal abortion today to stop providingthat service on October 29. It would completely eliminate access to safe and legal abortion in vaststretches of Texas including the cities of Fort Worth, Harlingen, Killeen, Lubbock, McAllen, and Waco.

The law would also force doctors to go against years of research and their professional experience byrequiring their patients to follow an inferior, outdated, and less effective protocol for medicationabortion. It would impose unnecessary burdens on women who choose this method and completelydeny others the opportunity to consider this safe way to end an early pregnancy.

Courts have blocked similar provisions in other states across the country. Hospital admitting privilegesrequirements aimed at shutting down all or most of the abortion providers in Alabama, Mississippi, NorthDakota, and Wisconsin have been halted before they took effect. State courts in North Dakota and Oklahomahave permanently struck down unconstitutional restrictions on medication abortion.

More than 130,000 women have been forced to go without preventive health care, including cancer screeningsand birth control, since the 2011 Texas Legislature slashed funding for womens health, and tens of thousandsmore are expected to go without care since Planned Parenthood was banned from the Womens HealthProgram last year. Nearly half of women seeking an abortion in Texas were unable to access their preferredbirth control method in the months prior to their unintended pregnancy, according to the Texas PolicyEvaluation Project, led by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, Ibis Reproductive Health, and theUniversity of Alabama at Birmingham.