Abbott unveils anti-abortion plans
Proposed revisions to medical policy would increase barriers for women
AUSTIN — Texas officials have wasted little time advancing new antiabortion policies after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned state law for building what it deemed to be unconstitutional barriers to abortion.
Since the high court opinion decimated parts of the Texas abortion law in late June, Gov. Greg Abbott’s administration has unveiled a new fetal burial policy, published revisions of a mandatory pre-abortion brochure that medical experts say inserts inaccuracies and granted $1.6 million to a group run by an anti-abortion advocate.
“Unfortunately, it’s not business as usual. Some of these things happen be- cause of timing, but some of it is a change in culture at the agency,” said Blake Rocap, legislative counsel for NARAL Pro-Choice Texas.
Abortion policy, a traditional hot button across the U.S., is usually crafted by state-elected officials who write laws every two years. However, the governor’s office said these are pressing issues that cannot wait until the Legislature returns in 2017.
“Gov. Abbott believes that defending the sanc- tity and dignity of human life is worthy of immediate action,” said Ciara Matthews, the governor’s spokeswoman.
Abortion rights advocates say proposed changes are begging to be litigated. After the threeyear fight that rose to the nation’s highest court, however, they say they are in no rush to file suit.
Between pending changes mandating fetal tissue cremation or burial and contested edits to a “Women’s Right to Know” handout, more than 21,000 reactionary comments have flooded state agencies. The comments have yet to be broken down by pro and con.
All of those comments came after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s 2013 requirements that facilities adhere to costly standards of ambulatory surgical centers and require doctors performing abortion to gain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, call-
ing them unconstitutional barriers to abortion.
The Supreme Court opinion infuriated antiabortion advocates who are now brainstorming laws to introduce when the Legislature returns next year.
Some 20 clinics have closed since the now-unconstitutional law went into effect, and the number of abortions reported in Texas dropped 14 percent to 54,902. Shuttered abortion clinics would have to reapply for permits and find new staff to reopen their doors and abortion providers said they have yet to hear of any willing to reopen.
The day after the high court struck down Texas’ law, the state proposed formal changes to its Women’s Right to Know brochure, a 24-page handout each woman is required to have in-hand 24-hours prior to undergoing an abortion.
State lawmakers mandated providers give the booklet to patients undergoing abortions in 2003, and the content has remained unchanged since.
This year’s revisions came after reviewing medical research, said Carrie Williams, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. However, the pamphlet maintains medical information that science has debunked, such as any link between abortion and breast cancer. Among the changes, the new version refers to the embryo and fetus as “your baby” 62 times, up from four references in the current version in sections about choosing pregnancy.
The state clearly favors childbirth over abortion and should be able to promote that viewpoint in its policies and brochure, said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, a leading anti-abortion group.
“It’s not supposed to be a peer-reviewed paper in a medical journal,” he said. “It’s for people that are under great stress and need to know their options.”
“When ... 45 percent of the statements that apply to the women are inaccurate, that brochure is clearly not informing her choice. It’s misleading her.” Trisha Trigilio, staff lawyer for the ACLU of Texas
‘Misleading’ women
The Informed Consent Project, based out of Rutgers University’s Department of Political Science, evaluated informed consent packets from 23 states for medical accuracy. It found 30 percent of statements in Texas’ proposed revision were inaccurate, with 45 percent of statements about the first trimester faulty. Some medically accurate statements from the original document were deleted and inaccurate statements were added, the research found.
“When you’re requiring doctors to hand women a brochure that 45 percent of the statements that apply to the women are inaccurate, that brochure is clearly not informing her choice. It’s misleading her,” said Trisha Trigilio, Houston-based staff lawyer for the ACLU of Texas who declined to say whether the organization planned to litigate.
Days after the proposed revisions came out, state officials began moving forward with the second policy change: the Texas Health and Human Services Commission on July 1 quietly revealed plans to require fetal remains, regardless of gestational age, be given a burial or cremation. The remains are now treated as medical waste and are often incinerated, although state law allows disposal through sanitary sewers. Most Texas abortions happen within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy when the fetus is typically smaller than a lime.
Requiring fetal tissue be buried affirms the dignity of all life, according to the governor’s office. The move is part of the governor’s LIFE Initiative to protect the unborn, eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood and improve and expand adoption services, according to Matthews, his spokeswoman.
The policy as written would also apply to fetal tissue from miscarriages, although it is unclear whether that inclusion will make it into the final policy.
Estimates for the cost of cremation and burial vary, although the basic fee for funeral services is $2,000, according to the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Texas, adding a significant cost for abortion providers to absorb or pass on to patients. Calling foul
The governor’s office, which took credit for pushing the agency to write the policy, said the unveiling of the proposed rule had nothing to do with the timing of the Supreme Court’s opinion. The governor had pushed the commission for months to write that rule, his office said, but was not involved in the crafting or the timing of it.
“I cannot speak strongly enough that there is nothing to read into the timing,” Matthews said. “This has been a conversation that has been ongoing with HHSC since the beginning of the year. It just happened to be that the Supreme Court came out with their decision around the time when the governor and HHSC were concluding what the proposed rule changes were going to look like, so there’s nothing to read into that at all.”
Last week, HHSC awarded a $1.6 million contract to a nonprofit group run by a well-known antiabortion advocate to provide women’s health care. The Heidi Group is shifting its attention from advocacy to health care, said Carol Everett, the group’s founder and CEO. Abortion rights groups are calling foul, asking the state auditor to investigate whether the grant was improperly awarded to the group.
With an administration and state laws that stand in steadfast opposition to abortion, critics fear the changes will further damage women’s ability to obtain an abortion, whether by higher costs associated with cremating their fetus or in wading through coercion in the state-sponsored information.
Abortion providers and the ACLU have declined to say whether they plan to file litigation to challenge the proposed policy changes. Neither the burial rule nor the pamphlet’s edits have gone into effect as the state wades through thousands of comments. Final decisions on both proposals are expected in the coming months.
“It was a victory for reproductive rights advocates,” Trigilio said of this summer’s high court opinion, “but our reaction was also, we’re going to have to continue to fight and Texas has made that clear.”