Texas anti-abortion bill

Sweeping Texas anti-abortion bill heads to governor as legal challenges loom

By RENUKA RAYASAM

State legislators cleared a sweeping anti-abortion bill that also restricts donations of fetal tissue and cord blood almost a year after the Supreme Court struck down abortion restrictions in a 2013 state law.

After a short debate, the state Senate on Friday sent S.B. 8 to Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign it. The measure is expected to trigger almost immediate legal challenges from abortion rights groups, again making Texas a test case for how far states can go in placing limits on the procedure.

“For 2017, I think it is fair to say this is just about the most sweeping legislation we’ve seen move this year,” said Elizabeth Nash, senior state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. The package “would make it much harder to provide abortion services to women, requiring some women to leave the state for care," she said.

The bill would ban “partial-birth” and “dilation and evacuation” abortions, restrict fetal tissue and cord blood donations after elective abortions, irrespective whether money changes hands, and require the burial or cremation of fetal remains. It also boosts reporting requirements for abortion providers.

Partial-birth abortions and fetal tissue sales are already banned under federal law. Curbs on other dilation and evacuation procedures and fetal burial requirements are facing court challenges.

A federal judge earlier this year blocked a rule passed by the state’s health department requiring the burial or cremation of fetal remains, saying it placed an undue burden on those trying to access abortion services. That ruling echoed one made by the Supreme Court last summer, when justices struck down a restrictive abortion law that the state passed.

Anti-abortion activists in the state are prepared for the next round of legal challenges. A “severability” clause was added to the bill last Friday, meaning if one aspect of the bill gets struck down in courts, the others will still stand.

Bill supporters are looking for courts to follow precedent and uphold the ban on dilation and evacuation abortions. In a 2007 decision upholding a federal ban on partial-birth abortions, the Supreme Court said states had an interest in preserving fetal life.

That decision and others surrounding whether a fetus experiences pain “left a huge opening” for states to continue restricting certain abortion procedures, John Seago, legislative director at the anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life, told POLITICO.

Two states, Mississippi and West Virginia, have such “D&E” bans in effect, and Arkansas has one scheduled to take effect in August. But the bans are being challenged in four other states: Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

The procedure is the most common one for second-trimester abortions, said Yvonne Gutierrez, executive director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes. "This would be the legislature changing the safest method of abortion during this time," she said.

The House advanced the bill after a more than six-hour debate late last week. While restrictions on abortion had easily passed the state Senate earlier in the session, the effort stalled and died in the House. During the Friday house debate, Republican legislators tacked on half a dozen amendments resurrecting previously rejected anti-abortion measures to a base bill that would require fetal remains be buried or cremated.

Efforts by House Democrats to include exceptions for victims of rape and incest were rebuffed along with Republican proposals such as banning late-term abortions in the case of fetal abnormalities.

“I wish there was more unity around it,” Seago said. He believes that many of the provisions tacked on to the bill were “distractions” from what he considers to be the central goal of banning "D&E" abortions.

Joe Pojman, executive director of another anti-abortion group called Texas Alliance for Life, believes that the "D&E" ban will not survive a court challenge. He said that a defeat similar to the one the state absorbed at the Supreme Court could set the anti-abortion movement back.

In addition to opening new arguments for abortion rights activists to challenge abortion laws, the state was required to pay millions of dollars in court fees for the plaintiffs.

“We can’t sustain another loss like we sustained” last year, Pojman said.