What is the price of life in Texas?
Abortion bans in Texas have ignited a public health crisis. Since the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 8 in 2021, dozens of pregnant people have needlessly died due to sepsis, a life-threatening condition that is entirely preventable. More infants have died in Texas since stringent abortion bans went into effect. More suffering has followed for those denied access to fundamental healthcare. Black infants, mothers and their families have suffered the most. There’s nothing pro-life about that.
These patients, their babies, and their families have paid the ultimate price simply because they were pregnant in Texas. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Texans are being held captive by politicians in the state Legislature. About half of all Texans believe abortion laws should be less strict — especially considering financial hardships. But instead of representing the needs of their constituents, state legislators are passing bills that could inflict more harm to pregnant people.
House Bill 44 and its companion SB 31 claim to clarify language that would help doctors provide “life-saving care” without the fear of prosecution. But the amended bill that passed unanimously in the Senate last month still leaves pregnant people who seek an abortion and those who support them vulnerable because it does not contain a statutory exception to prosecution. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has already shown his eagerness to take legal action against Texans, including abortion funders like us.
The fact is, exceptions to abortion bans do not work. Studies show health and life exceptions to bans are a false promise because abortion care is a critical part of health care. As long as people are able to get pregnant, there will always be a need for abortion care.
We’ve already seen pregnant people like Amanda Zurawski face devastating and irreversible consequences because of the inherent vagueness of exception laws. And we know that despite the narrowest of exceptions, Texans will still need access to the full spectrum of reproductive care.
Abortion bans do not end the need for abortion — they just make things more dangerous for all pregnant people. Exceptions bills do nothing to change that. My organization, Texas Equal Access Fund, has experienced a surge in the need for abortion care since 2021. We get dozens of calls a day from people who need help getting health care that is inaccessible to them. Lilith Fund and Fund Texas Choice, fellow members of the Trust Respect Access Coalition, a statewide network of reproductive care organizations, are seeing similar needs.
If state legislators actually cared about saving lives, they should pass Rosie’s Law, which has already been introduced in the House and Senate, HB 1098 and SB 359. Named after Rosie Jiménez, a 27-year-old Texan mother who died in 1977 because Medicaid did not cover her abortion care, Rosie’s Law would require all insurance plans, including Medicaid, to provide full coverage for legal abortion care. But instead of expanding health care, Texas is spending precious time and resources on self-congratulatory laws that could cause more harm than good.
As a Black woman, I’ve already seen too many Black mothers lose their lives to senseless laws aimed to control our bodies. From Porsha Ngumezi in Texas to Georgia’s Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, Black women are over three times more likely to die than white women during pregnancy or soon after giving birth in states that have abortion bans. These abortion bans are killing Black mothers, by design.
All pregnant Texans deserve immediate, evidence-based emergency care, not half-measures and vagueness. If the goal of SB 31 is to protect pregnant Texans, then state legislators must expand access to abortion care without fear of prosecution.
Kamyon Conner is the executive director of the Texas Equal Access Fund, which supports people in North, East and Panhandle regions of Texas to access abortion care, and a partner organization of the Trust Respect Access Coalition.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Exceptions to abortion bans don’t work. Texans need full access to abortion care | Opinion
Reporting by Kamyon Conner / Austin American-Statesman
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
