Texas Medical Board to consider issuing guidance on abortion laws' medical exceptions – The Texas Tribune
On March 22, the board will talk about clarifying what counts as a medical exception to the state’s abortion restrictions.
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The Texas Medical Board will contemplate language to make clear what qualifies as a medical exception to the state’s abortion legal guidelines at an upcoming March 22 board assembly. The meeting agenda was printed within the Texas Register Thursday morning.
In line with the medical board’s agenda, it will contemplate and take “potential motion on guidelines relating to exceptions to the ban on abortions” at their upcoming assembly.
This comes after Texas attorneys and lobbyists Steve and Amy Bresnen filed a petition in January that requested the board to subject “clear steering” about when an abortion is permitted below the legislation.
The Bresnens filed the petition, prompted by the Texas Supreme Court’s rejection of Kate Cox’s try to finish her nonviable being pregnant final yr. The Dallas girl had an abortion in one other state after the Texas Supreme Court docket dominated that she didn’t qualify for a medical emergency abortion.
“We’re hopeful that there’s motion, and we all know that that is simply step one in an extended journey to justice,” Amy Bresnen stated Thursday.
Texas legal guidelines ban practically all abortions except, “within the train of an affordable medical judgment,” a health care provider determines that the affected person is experiencing “a life-threatening bodily situation aggravated by, brought on by, or arising from a being pregnant that locations the feminine vulnerable to loss of life or poses a severe danger of considerable impairment of a significant bodily operate.”
Texas first passed a law in 2021 that banned most abortions after the sixth week of being pregnant — earlier than many ladies know they’re pregnant. When the U.S. Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, it activated a Texas set off legislation on abortion.
Since then, multiple women within the state have been denied medically essential abortions for sophisticated pregnancies. Many have stated they need to have certified for abortions below medical exceptions to the state’s legislation — however their docs have been too unclear on these slender exceptions and feared the implications of offering the process.
The Texas Medical Board can revoke a health care provider’s license in the event that they violate the state’s abortion legal guidelines. In December 2023, Texas’ Supreme Court asked the board to supply docs with extra steering on exceptions after the court docket rejected Cox’s bid for a medical emergency abortion. Earlier than the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Texas legislation would have allowed Cox to have an abortion at her physician’s workplace or hospital
In a March 13 letter to the Bresnen’s obtained by The Texas Tribune, the board stated they’ll contemplate the draft language proposed within the petition in addition to alternate language.
Of their January petition, the Bresnen’s additionally referred to as on the board to determine steps docs can take to make sure that their selections meet authorized requirements for medical exceptions. The petition requested that the board ban complaints in opposition to docs that aren’t supported by particular proof proving that an abortion carried out in Texas was unlawful.
After draft language is taken into account, the board may publish a rule within the Texas Register relating to medical exceptions. There can be a 30-day public remark interval to comply with, forward of a ultimate rule.
It’s unlawful to carry out an abortion in Texas, together with by allotting or mailing the abortion-inducing drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, in most circumstances. Texas’ legal guidelines have slender exceptions solely to save lots of the lifetime of a pregnant affected person or forestall “substantial impairment of main bodily operate.” State legal guidelines don’t criminalize the one that has an abortion. Some Texans have discovered methods to get abortions by touring to different states or Mexico, or self-managing abortions at residence by getting drugs by way of worldwide nonprofits, similar to Aid Access, or online stores.
State legislation says therapies for miscarriages, often called “spontaneous abortions” in drugs, and ectopic pregnancies, a probably life-threatening situation wherein a fertilized egg grows outdoors of the uterus, don’t rely as unlawful abortions. Well being care suppliers even have a authorized protection for offering abortions to deal with a “previable untimely rupture of membranes” when a pregnant affected person’s water breaks too early for the fetus to outlive outdoors the uterus. Learn extra here.
Adults in Texas can entry a variety of contraception and reproductive well being care providers by way of most medical insurance plans and government-funded packages. State packages and federally-funded Title X clinics additionally present contraception for individuals who are uninsured or undocumented. Nonetheless, minors want parental consent to get prescribed contraception, together with at Title X clinics, except they’re on the federal Medicaid insurance coverage program. Emergency contraception, like Plan B, remains to be obtainable over-the-counter in shops and, in some circumstances, by way of federally-funded clinics and public well being departments. Learn extra about contraception entry in Texas here.
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