October 28, 2013 Court Rules to Protect Abortion Access for Most Women in Texas, But Upholds Restrictions

on Medication Abortion Ruling blocks provision that would have made safe, legal abortion non-existent for one in three Texas women Statement from Melaney Linton, President & CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast: Todays ruling protects access to safe and legal abortion for women in many parts of the state, but it puts ideology over science by banning a safe method of abortion for many women. This kind of restriction takes a personal, private decision away from women and their doctors. Planned Parenthood nurses and doctors are taking every step we can to ensure that women in Texas have access to the highest quality health care no matter where they live." BACKGROUND The provisions challenged in court are part of a package of legislation which was signed by Governor Rick Perry on July 18 following a series of special legislative sessions, but was opposed by 80 percent of Texas voters, according to a poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. The law contains a separate provision, not a part of todays suit, that requires every health center providing abortion services to meet stringent, medically unnecessary building standards such as the specific hallway widths and the flooring and size of janitors closets by September 2014. Medical experts in Texas and across the country, including the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Texas Medical Association, and Texas Hospital Association, publicly opposed provisions in the law because they provide no medical benefit to women and will actually jeopardize womens health and safety. The laws requirement that abortion providers obtain hospital admitting privileges could cause at least one-third of the states licensed health centers providing safe and legal abortion today to stop providing that service on October 29. It would completely eliminate access to safe and legal abortion in vast stretches of Texas including the cities of Fort Worth, Harlingen, Killeen, Lubbock, McAllen, and Waco. The law would also force doctors to go against years of research and their professional experience by requiring their patients to follow an inferior, outdated, and less effective protocol for medication abortion. It would impose unnecessary burdens on women who choose this method and completely deny others the opportunity to consider this safe way to end an early pregnancy.

Courts have blocked similar provisions in other states across the country. Hospital admitting privileges requirements aimed at shutting down all or most of the abortion providers in Alabama, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Wisconsin have been halted before they took effect. State courts in North Dakota and Oklahoma have permanently struck down unconstitutional restrictions on medication abortion. More than 130,000 women have been forced to go without preventive health care, including cancer screenings and birth control, since the 2011 Texas Legislature slashed funding for womens health, and tens of thousands more are expected to go without care since Planned Parenthood was banned from the Womens Health Program last year. Nearly half of women seeking an abortion in Texas were unable to access their preferred birth control method in the months prior to their unintended pregnancy, according to the Texas Policy Evaluation Project, led by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, Ibis Reproductive Health, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.