Texas drops subtlety in abortion fight
I come from Brazil — a country where, with a few narrow exceptions, abortion patients and providers face prosecution and jail time for terminating pregnancies. Since people need abortions, regardless of the law, this means those who can afford it are able to safely obtain abortion care, while people in marginalized communities cannot exercise the same bodily autonomy without putting their health and lives in danger.
These facts weighed heavily on my mind when I had an abortion in Houston almost five years ago. Abortion may be a constitutionally protected right in the United States, but my ability to access this form of health care still rested on privilege — access to information, proximity to a clinic and having enough tips from my job waiting tables to pay for the procedure. These barriers have been erected by politicians who, prohibited from outright criminalizing abortion, are hell-bent on legislating it out of reach.
Texas’ Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is doing away with this subtlety by asking the Legislature for more resources and expanded jurisdiction to prosecute noncompliance with any of the burdensome regulations that the state has placed in the way of abortion care. It is clear that Paxton’s goal is to intimidate health care professionals, further stigmatize abortion and shame Texans.
Laws that push abortion out of reach and add to a climate of fear and repression have a profound impact in a state where access to health care is inadequate or nonexistent for those who are already struggling. A new study shows that poor women denied abortions are more likely to spend years living in poverty than women who have abortions.
Harm from any bill giving the Texas attorney general more funding and power to prosecute abortion providers would ultimately fall hardest on low-income people, women of color and immigrants who work to make ends meet and care for their families.
Most criminal enforcement currently falls to local prosecutors unless they seek the state’s help. However, the Senate Committee on State Affairs, chaired by Houston’s state Sen. Joan Huffman, a Republican, recommended in its interim report last year that the Legislature grant the Texas attorney general authority to prosecute these violations of abortion regulations.
Like the numerous politically motivated restrictions on abortion access that do nothing to protect Texans’ health, this move is part of a nationwide, coordinated plan that purports to offer a solution where there is no problem. The impetus behind the committee’s recommendation was a 2017 agreement by five district attorneys, including Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, a Democrat, not to enforce portions of an omnibus anti-abortion law as long as they were being challenged in court. U.S. District Court judges have since blocked significant enforcement these measures.
The attorney general’s office falsely portrayed this agreement as an instance of rogue officials putting their own politics above the state’s laws. Never mind that they could not provide any examples of violations of abortion regulations that district attorneys had not pursued.
Meanwhile, the state’s top attorney continues to ignore the pressing issues facing Texans — not to mention his own ongoing prosecution for securities fraud.
Seeking concurrent jurisdiction to independently prosecute abortion providers and people who need care would move us closer to the criminalization of abortion, which studies routinely show endangers people’s lives by forcing them to resort to unsafe procedures for basic health care.
Personally, I only ever feared for my safety outside an abortion clinic, where I was called a murderer by protesters who could show no more empathy than Paxton for anyone making that decision. Legislators can address this actual problem of dangerous harassment at abortion clinics by passing a state version of the federal FACE Act that protects doctors and patients from physical harm and harassment.
A majority of Texans believe that we should be able to make our own decisions about pregnancy and parenting, according to a 2018 Quinnipiac University Poll. The Legislature can reflect this reality by promoting policies that entrust Texans to make our own reproductive health care decisions, respect our dignity and the judgment of health care professionals, and ensure access to abortion and the support all families need to thrive. This is a future worth fighting for.