Senate passes ‘wrongful birth’ bill
AUSTIN — Parents who would have terminated a pregnancy if they had more information about the fetus’ abnormalities no longer would have the right to sue their doctor under a bill the Texas Senate passed Monday in the chamber’s latest attempt to chip away at abortion rights.
The Republican-led Senate voted 21-9, largely along party lines, to pass Senate Bill 25, which would eliminate the “wrongful birth” cause of action giving parents the ability to seek legal damages if they give birth to a child with disabilities that they would have aborted had the doctor provided them more information.
While advocates say the bill helps to promote the value of babies with disabilities, opponents say the legislation is an attempt to meddle with women’s decisions and give anti-abortion doctors legal cover to downplay information about the severity of a fetus’ potential disability.
“It seems to be all about restricting and further limiting a woman’s right to exercise her choice as to what she’s gong to do in the case of serious detects in the fetus, congenital defects in the fetus,” said Sen. Jose Rodriguez, an El Paso Democrat, during debate on the Senate floor.
‘It’s a huge deal’
The bill is sponsored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, a Conroe Republican and lawyer who argued the legislation works to promote a culture that the lives of disabled babies are valued in Texas and “end the negative precedent that disabled persons should not have been born.”
He stressed that doctors who act improperly still can be sued for malpractice.
The cause of action first was recognized in the Texas Supreme Court in 1975 in the case of Jacobs v Theimer in which parents of a disabled child argued they would have aborted the pregnancy if they knew about the baby’s disabilities. The parents won and were awarded expenses necessary to treat the child’s impairment for life.
The legislation is one of several anti-abortion bills that have moved swiftly through the Senate this session, including Senate Bill 415 that restricts the use of fetal tissue from elective abortions and Senate Bill 415 which restricts so-called dismemberment abortions.
Critics of the bill say that removing the cause of action infringes on a woman’s right to choice by protecting doctors who fail to share medical information that could lead to the decision to end a pregnancy.
“For the families it affects, it’s a huge deal. It’s a lifetime of extra care,” said Blake Rocap, legislative counsel for NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, an abortion rights advocacy group. “It basically says to physicians, ‘Well, if you think you might disagree with the position that the patient makes for their own health care, you don’t have to tell them,’ and that violates every tenet of health care and the way physicians should treat their patients.”
2013 law shut clinics
The legislation passed the Senate on second reading and is due for a third reading before lawmakers send the measure to the House of Representatives.
Republican Texas lawmakers have pushed to curtail abortion in the state, but were dealt a blow last year when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down major provisions of the state’s strict 2013 law that forced abortion clinics to adhere to costly standards of ambulatory surgical centers and require their physicians obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. The law prompted about half of the state’s 40 abortion clinics to close.
SB 25 was brought to the Legislature in part by the Texas Alliance for Life, according to Joe Pojman, executive director of the organization which is active at the Capitol.
“Texas would basically say that physicians are not accountable to a disability that they didn’t cause. That’s how we view it,” said Pojman, who added that the legislation is “consistent with the state’s policy of promoting childbirth over abortion.”
Monday’s preliminary passage in the Senate marks the first time the bill has won approval on the floor. A similar bill won approval by a House committee in 2015, but never received a vote by the full chamber.