Abortion in Texas is illegal in most cases.[1] There are nominally exceptions to save the mother's life, or prevent "substantial impairment of major bodily function", but the law on abortion in Texas is written in such an ambiguous way that life-threatening or harmful pregnancies do not explicitly constitute an exception.[2][3][4] Attempts to clarify and codify these exceptions into law have been rejected by Republican lawmakers in Texas.[5]
This has resulted in some expectant mothers with health problems being forced to carry until birth, jeopardizing their health,[2] even resulting in deaths.[6][7] Some pregnant women leave the state to seek an abortion elsewhere, with an estimated 35,000 women crossing Texas state lines for legal abortions in 2023.[8] Anyone who aids or abets an illegal abortion in Texas can be sued for wrongful death.[9] In March 2023, a Galveston man sued three friends of his ex-wife for wrongful death after they helped her obtain illegal abortion pills that were used to terminate her pregnancy.[10] The lawsuit was dropped on October 10th 2024 as part of a confidential settlement with the defendants.[11]
The legal status of abortion in Texas is due to a trigger law passed in July 2021 that came in effect on August 25, 2022, as a consequence of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v. Wade.[12] The law makes no exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.[2] In May 2021, the Texas legislature passed the Texas Heartbeat Act (SB 8) that banned abortion after the detection of embryonic or fetal cardiac activity. This stage of development normally occurs after about six weeks of pregnancy, earlier than when most women know that they are pregnant.[13][14] This act relied solely on enforcement by private individuals through civil lawsuits, thus evading pre-enforcement challenges based on Roe v. Wade. Before the enactment of this law, elective abortions had been allowed up to 20 weeks post-fertilization.[15]
In August 2023, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed HB 3058[16] into law, allowing doctors to provide abortions in the case of an ectopic pregnancy or if a pregnant patient's water breaks too early, rendering the fetus unviable.[17] In December 2023, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that a pregnant woman whose fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition and whose pregnancy posed a threat to her health could not be permitted to receive an abortion.[4] In June 2024, the Texas Supreme Court further upheld the state's criminalization of abortion.[18]
The cities of Austin,[19] Dallas,[20] Denton,[21] El Paso,[22] and Houston[23] have enacted resolutions instructing city officials to deprioritize enforcement of the state's abortion laws, but anyone violating the state's abortion laws in those cities remains subject to criminal prosecution by the district attorney (a county official) and civil penalties imposed by the state attorney general.
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