Just 2% of Texas voters call abortion the state’s most pressing problem. Advocates are reframing the issue as one of reproductive healthcare that affects families’ pocketbooks.
Delegates to the Texas GOP convention recently adopted a platform calling in-vitro fertilization destructive to fetal life.
A Black mother of three talks about her scary experiences with her pregnancies that could have taken her life. She explains how racial inequities lead to preventable problems.
The revised bill, which seeks to clarify when a doctor can perform medically necessary abortions, aims to address concerns from abortion advocates and conservative groups.
Some health care providers in support of Senate Bill 2880 said people who are mailed abortion pills aren’t given instructions and do not receive follow-up care.
Senate Bill 31 supporters say it would clarify when doctors should intervene to save a pregnant woman’s life, but critics say its vagueness and a measure to resurrect pre-Roe laws hamper it.
The Legislature is considering bills that would lift long-standing restrictions on how Texas’ panel can investigate maternal deaths and near-misses.
Two years ago, Dhiyasri Thirumurugan and Anvi Jakatimath noticed the girls' bathrooms at Basis San Antonio - Shavano Campus didn’t have dispensers with female menstrual items.
Legislators allowed doulas and community health workers to bill Medicaid last session. They’re hoping it’s just the beginning.
Almost half of Texas counties have nowhere to get prenatal care, let alone deliver a baby. This plan offers legislative proposals to shore up what’s left.
Tuesday marked the first day lawmakers could file bills for next year’s legislative session.
The group of 111 doctors cited recent ProPublica reporting on two pregnant women who died because doctors did not provide lifesaving care.
Marcus Silva and the women agreed to drop lawsuits against each other just days before they were set to go to trial.
Three Republican incumbents are being targeted for their role in recent abortion rulings by a new Democratic political action committee.
The panel wants to review those cases, which have been excluded from state data for years, and other reforms amid a report that shows a spike in maternal deaths.
A new app aims to make pregnancy safer by using artificial intelligence to identify potential risks, through the use of machine learning techniques.
Amid a fight over an “abortion travel ban,” women health care experts say more attention is needed to the plight of pregnant Texans in the Panhandle where there are few hospitals and OBGYNs.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women, but a new study showed 65 percent of women who have high risk factors, are not even referred to specialists. The top doctors in the field admit big changes need to happen fast before more women fall through the cracks.
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows cost and access are keeping women from getting life saving mammograms.
The Texas Supreme Court has asked the licensing board to offer doctors guidance on how to interpret the medical exception to the state’s abortion ban. Some doctors say that wouldn’t be enough reassurance.
In August, a judge ruled that the state’s near-total abortion ban should not apply to medically complicated pregnancies. The state appealed that ruling to the Texas Supreme Court, putting it on hold.
Reporter Eleanor Klibanoff and photojournalist Shelby Tauber talked with Tribune editor Terri Langford about their reporting on a story of a 26-year-old Texan who was told her twin sons had a zero percent chance of survival after childbirth.
Amarillo's city council said it will continue to study the issue. The city is one of just a few in Texas to reject the policy pushed by anti-abortion activists.
Miranda Michel, 26, couldn’t leave the state for an abortion. But she also couldn’t bear the idea of carrying a nonviable pregnancy to term.
The groups work in dozens of school districts across the state, but some public health experts say their curricula can be misleading and biased.
Two Texas lawmakers are among the panelists who will talk about the fight that continues after the Dobbs verdict — from coast to coast and border to border.
Syphilis rates in Texas continue to climb, alarming healthcare workers who see the highest increases among pregnant people and newborns. A shortage of treatment is complicating efforts to combat it.
The women, believed to be the first to testify about an abortion ban’s impact on their pregnancy since 1973, are seeking to clarify when a medical emergency justifies an abortion.
The Texas House and Senate voted for the proposal, capping a yearslong effort to extend coverage for low-income moms. Medicaid covers half of all births in Texas, and coverage currently expires after two months.
The bill, which Democrats have been pushing for years, has become a top priority after the overturn of Roe v. Wade. The Senate has already passed the bill, which would provide tax relief on the purchase of menstrual products, diapers and other child care necessities.
New moms will be able to keep their health insurance for a full year under a proposal the Senate passed Sunday. A last-minute anti-abortion amendment means the bill will go back to the House.
New moms would be able to maintain their health insurance for up to a year after childbirth under the proposal, which also passed the House last session. The Senate previously reduced it to just six months of coverage.
Gaslighting is when someone makes you doubt your own thoughts and feelings. It happens all the time and it’s happening to women at the doctor’s office.
The proposal would remove sales tax on diapers, baby wipes and bottles; feminine hygiene products including tampons, sanitary pads and menstrual cups; maternity clothing; and products for pumping breast milk.
Anti-abortion advocates are trying to revive the long-dormant 1873 Comstock Act, which banned mailing of anything related to abortion or contraception, in a lawsuit about mifepristone, an abortion-inducing drug.
Davis, best known for her 13-hour filibuster of a 2013 abortion bill, sought to block the state’s ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. A federal judge found Davis had not “articulated a credible, imminent threat.”
While Democrats and the far-right edge of the Republican Party remain focused on abortion, leaders in both chambers have not yet spent much time discussing the issue this session.
Women in Deep East Texas drive over an hour to give birth after the last obstetrics unit in the area closed in 2019. But if closing the unit was hard, reopening it is proving nearly impossible.
The Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee report, delayed by more than three months, estimates that up to 90% of the deaths may have been preventable. Severe complications from pregnancy and childbirth also increased significantly.
Whole Woman’s Health, which owned the building for nearly two decades, said they were “duped” after the doctors who bought the building sold it to the McAllen Pregnancy Center.
Several new studies show that not everyone denied access to abortions in Texas can travel out of state, but more people than ever before are seeking ways to self-manage abortions with medication at home.
Several abortion funds have sued anti-abortion activist Mark Lee Dickson, who called them “criminal organizations,” for defamation.
Polling shows that a majority of voters in Texas oppose the state’s near-total ban on abortion, but they ranked the topic ninth on a list of most important issues facing the country.
A federal judge who previously quashed the subpoena ruled that the attorney general must take the witness stand in a lawsuit from abortion funds.
U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, hopes the pilot program will help female veterans get better access to cancer care.
Ana Marie Cox moderates a conversation about women’s health, women’s rights and an uncertain future with former state Sen. Wendy Davis, state Rep. Donna Howard and Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson.
“It was just a matter of time before the baby died, or maybe I’d have to go through the trauma of carrying to term knowing I wasn’t bringing a baby home,” said 27-year-old Lauren Hall. “I couldn’t do that.”
Lawmakers say they need the latest pregnancy-related death data to more precisely address the problem during the legislative session. But delays means they won’t see it until after the session ends.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor’s ruling could threaten access to sexual and reproductive health care for more than 150 million working Americans on employer-sponsored health care plans. The ruling will likely be appealed.
In August, movers arrived at Alamo Women’s Reproductive Services to help the abortion clinic pack up for a move out of state.
In parts of Mexico where abortion has not been legalized, women rely on volunteer networks to provide medication and emotional support for at-home abortions. As access to abortion is shut down in Texas, similar networks are being built in the U.S.
En algunos estados de México, donde el aborto todavía no es legal, redes de acompañantes proveen medicamento y apoyo emocional para que las personas puedan realizar abortos en casa. Debido a que el acceso al aborto en Texas es cada vez más limitado, estas redes están comenzando a formarse en Estados Unidos.
The suit comes two days before the state’s newest abortion ban, triggered by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, goes into effect.
Advocates have previously called for repealing the sales tax on products like tampons, sanitary pads and pantyliners. Menstrual products are already tax-free in 24 states.
The restriction, which was revived after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, was put in place amid concerns about declining white birth rates and as the medical profession formalized.
Experts on adoption and abortion say lawmakers must work to provide financial and mental health support to birth parents, adoptive parents and adoptees in order to make the adoption process a better option for those with unwanted pregnancies.
HHSC said it was initially told the plan was “not approvable.” Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a statement Friday saying Texas’ plan to extend coverage to six months was not rejected but still under review.
The changing legal landscape is raising questions for public colleges about how to talk to students about reproductive health care options and creating hesitancy among students about whether they can trust their universities’ health centers.
The request for a public health emergency declaration was part of a set of recommendations to allow abortion access to Texans who might not be able to travel out of state.
Medical professionals across the state have expressed confusion over what care they can provide amid Texas’ abortion ban, leading to some patients allegedly receiving delayed care or being turned away.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argues the Biden administration is violating the state’s “sovereign interest” by reassuring the nation’s doctors they can perform abortions in medical emergencies.
Coffee was just 30 when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with her argument that the constitutional right to privacy extended to abortion: “I thought, OK, well this is done now. I was thinking the [abortion] question was settled for as long as the country lasted.”
About 40% of women who get abortions in the U.S. are Black, and advocates say abortion bans like Texas’ will increase their health and financial risks.
It’s unclear whether Texas’ tangled web of abortion laws would make it a crime to pay for a Texan to leave the state to get an abortion, but the threat has compelled the funds to cease services.
District attorneys and local leaders in five counties have promised not to pursue criminal charges related to the state’s new abortion laws. But civil and administrative fines could be financially devastating or cost health care providers their licenses.
Advocates say abortion has often been the safest option for many experiencing intimate partner violence.
The party planks specify what the Texas GOP believes students should and should not be taught in the classroom about gender and sex, signaling further shifts to the right. Critics say such policies would be harmful and discriminatory.
Abortion clinics, and the patients they serve, have always had to adapt to changing laws and tightening restrictions. But the Supreme Court seems poised to deliver the fatal blow they’ve been dodging for decades.
Women’s health care providers are holding back when counseling pregnant patients about treatment options, doctors report pharmacists are hesitant to distribute some prescriptions, and OB-GYN training is diminishing for Texas medical school students.
In this video, see what abortion rights supporters in Texas say about the impact of a likely U.S. Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade.
Providers, advocates and doctors spent much of the day Tuesday reassuring people that the procedure remains legal until the high court issues an official opinion overturning it.
The U.S. Supreme Court left abortion providers only the narrowest avenue to challenge the ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. Friday’s Texas Supreme Court ruling has effectively ended that federal legal challenge.
The COVID vaccine is proven safe during all stages of pregnancy, and pregnant patients are at an increased risk of getting seriously ill if they contract the virus. Still, many pregnant women hesitate.
Only 40% of Texas’ rural hospitals offer labor and delivery services, forcing some patients to drive hundreds of miles to give birth. With nurses in short supply, more hospitals are considering cutting those services entirely.
But some Texas nonprofit groups dedicated to paying for the medical costs of abortion say they have more money than patients to give it to — a likely symptom of fewer people being able to access the procedure because of the new law.
For two months, providers have had to work in a sort of limbo as they wait to see if the new law passes the Supreme Court's review.
The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday morning will hold a hearing on Texas’ ban on most abortions and how it has impacted families.
In South Texas, poverty and immigration status compound the obstacles facing pregnant people seeking abortions.
Genetic screenings can help determine if a fetus will have certain conditions — or even be viable. But those usually occur at the end of the first trimester, long after Texas' new abortion law bans people from terminating their pregnancies.
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The ruling late Wednesday from U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman doesn’t protect providers who perform abortions while the Texas law makes its way through the courts.
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