Texas lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle have come to a rare agreement regarding abortion. During the recent legislative session, the Texas senate unanimously passed a bill that clarifies how Texas’s abortion laws allow immediate treatment for a life-threatening condition known as previable premature rupture of membranes (PPROM). The bill was subsequently agreed to by the house with a vote of 128-12, and Texas governor Greg Abbott signed it into law on Wednesday.
Several pro-life groups, including national and Texas-based organizations, have been emphasizing for a year that Texas’s abortion laws do not require medical providers to wait until a threat to the life of the mother becomes imminent. The Center for Reproductive Rights, a pro-abortion advocacy group, has even filed a lawsuit against the State of Texas, acknowledging that the laws’ “exception does not require that any of the risks to the pregnant person be imminent” and that “physicians are over-complying with the laws to the detriment of their patients’ lives.” Unfortunately, some Texas hospitals have indeed dangerously delayed care in cases of PPROM.
Texas state senator Bryan Hughes, a Republican and a sponsor of the bill, told National Review that “Texas law is already clear, but because some doctors and hospitals were not following the law, we wanted to remove any doubt and remove any excuse for not giving the care that the moms need in these cases.” He added that “Democrats and Republicans recognize that women were being harmed by this interpretation of the law.” Hughes attended Abbott’s signing of the bill and noted that several pro-life groups, as well as the Texas Medical Association and Texas Hospital Association, approved the language in the bill during the process of getting it negotiated and passed. He believed the associations were either already educating their members about the measure or had plans to do so.
The bill, H.B. 3058, amends the penal code to say that a “physician or health care provider is justified in exercising reasonable medical judgment” in cases of treating PPROM or ectopic pregnancies anywhere in the body. (Texas law already explicitly excluded treatment of ectopic pregnancies from the definition of abortion.) H.B. 3058 also says the state medical board may “not take disciplinary action against a physician” in such cases and that treating such cases is an “affirmative defense” in any civil lawsuit.
Senator Hughes is hopeful the new measure will finally get those Texas hospital administrators and lawyers who have either misinterpreted the law or have been unreasonably afraid of it to reverse course. He’s also hopeful that the Texas Medical Board, an official state agency, will provide formal guidance to hospitals about what the law means. The agency has so far not provided guidance, and a spokesman told National Review on Friday it couldn’t comment due to pending litigation.
Despite fears stoked by the media over Texas’s six-week abortion limit, enforced only via civil lawsuits, there has never been a good excuse for Texas hospitals to delay treatment in these cases. In nearly two years since the law took effect, the only doctor known to have been sued was one who wrote a Washington Post op-ed in which he deliberately attempted to create a legal challenge by suggesting that he performed an illegal elective abortion. In the year since Texas’s criminal abortion law has been in effect, no medical provider has been prosecuted. Pro-life groups have been making the case before incidents of delayed treatment occurred that Texas law allows immediate delivery in cases of PPROM, even though some mothers will choose expectant management. Pro-lifers have been urging those in positions of authority to ensure hospitals properly understand the law. As National Review recently editorialized, providing such clarifying guidance is “perhaps the single most important thing pro-life officials can do right now.”
