AUSTIN – The Texas House of Representatives today voted to pass HB 16, a proposal that exposes doctors who perform safe abortion care to unfair investigations and lawsuits.
Responding to the vote, ACLU of Texas reproductive rights strategist Drucilla Tigner stated:
“HB 16 is not about medical care – it is instead the legislature’s latest attempt to limit women’s access to safe and legal abortions by intimidating physicians who provide crucial abortion care through politically motivated investigations and lawsuits instigated by the attorney general. The bill is based on a false premise: since the state started tracking this statistic in 2013, there have been zero cases of an abortion resulting in a live birth in Texas. However, if such an extremely rare situation were to occur, existing law already makes clear that any doctor who strays from the current standard of care would face the same penalties as any doctor who neglects a newborn. The actual intent of HB 16 is to distort public perception of safe, legal abortion care and unfairly target those who provide it in order to further restrict access.”
