As Texas DPS officers carried a shouting woman out of the chamber by her arms and legs Wednesday, the Texas House of Representatives approved more restrictive abortion regulations, forwarding the bill on to the state Senate.
House Bill 2 was swiftly approved 96 to 49 Wednesday, following more than 10 hours of testimony Tuesday. The bill would ban abortions performed 20 weeks after fertilization; require doctors performing abortions to have hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of the facility; require doctors to administer the abortion-inducing drug RU-486 in person, rather than allow the woman to take it at home; and require all abortion facilities to meet the same requirements as ambulatory surgical centers. The latter requirement, opponents say, could shutter 36 of the state’s 42 abortion centers.
Speaker of the House Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, exhaled as he sounded the gavel: “House Bill 2 has finally passed.”
The bill now moves on to the state Senate early next week, then to Gov. Rick Perry’s desk. Both the Senate and the governor are expected to approve the measure.
Republicans applauded HB2’s passage, as was to be expected. “Happy for final passage of #HB2 in TX House. Hope TX Senate will take swift action to pass this legislation #Stand4Life #txlege,” wrote U.S. Senator Ted Cruz on Twitter. “#HB2 passes 3rd reading in the TX House – On to the Senate – Praise God! #stand4life #txlege #tcot #prolife,” added state Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford.
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists was less enthusiastic. In a July 9 ad in the Austin American-Statesman, the group argued against the bill, telling Texas legislators to “get out of our exam rooms”:
While we can agree to disagree about abortion on ideological grounds, we must draw a hard line against insidious legislation that threatens women’s health like Texas HB2 (House Bill 2) and SB1 (Senate Bill 1). That’s why we’re speaking to the false and misleading underlying assumptions of this and other legislation like it: These bills are as much about interfering with the practice of medicine and the relationship a patient has with her physician as they are about restricting women’s access to abortion. The fact is that these bills will not help protect the health of any woman in Texas. Instead, these bills will harm women’s health in very clear ways.
Texas Democrats echoed the sentiment. “This will be a hollow victory for supporters. The courts will smack this out of the air (just like in many other states),” wrote state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston.
Approval came after a landslide of amendments were lodged by House Democrats; all were tabled or denied. The last such amendment—by state Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio—seemingly would have aided the likely increase in Texas children by extending state benefits to those put into foster care and the adoption system by women who could not access abortion due to HB2. It was denied by the bill’s author, state Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, R-Parker.
“It goes under the assumption that if a child is born in need that there are no services available, and that is also not the case,” she said.
The complete text of the bill can be found here.
