Texas House Bill 2 (HB2) is a bill within the Eighty-third Texas Legislature, first introduced into the Texas Senate as Texas Senate Bill 5 (SB5) on June 11, 2013, related to abortion rights within the state. Among provisions include banning abortions 20 weeks post-fertilization, and mandating that doctors practicing abortions must have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
SB5 was heavily criticized by state Democrats, and passage during a special session in the Texas Senate was blocked by a filibuster by Senator Wendy Davis by the end of the legislative term at the end of June. Governor Rick Perry created a second special session, in which the failed SB5 was reintroduced within the Texas House of Representatives as HB2, and eventually passed both Houses and signed into law by Gov. Perry on July 18, 2013. The law faced immediate legal scrutiny, and in July 2016, the United States Supreme Court held some parts of the law to be unconstitutional in its decision on Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt . [1]
Texas Senate Bill 5 is a list of measures that would amend and add to abortion regulations in Texas, drawn from previous bills that had failed earlier in the legislative term. [2] Four key measures introduced by the bill included:
The bill would not apply to abortions necessary to save the mother's life or to prevent permanent bodily damage from a pregnancy. [9] [10]
During the 2012–2013 Eighty-third Texas Legislature, several bills were introduced related to abortion restrictions but which failed to pass. [2] With several legislative matters left unresolved as the Texas Legislature ended its normal term in May 2013, including voting in new redistricting maps, Governor Rick Perry issued a 30-day special session started May 27, 2013, which under Texas law allows him to ask the legislature to produce legislation for other matters that he requests. [11]
Among issues that Perry sought was abortion. SB5 was introduced mid-June 2013, which combined elements of several of the failed bills from the term. [2] It passed through the committee stage and proceeded to be passed by the Senate. In the House, an amended version of SB5 was passed on June 23, 2013; because of this amendment, the Senate could not act on the bill for 48 hours, on June 25, 2013, the last day of the special session. If the bill failed before the normal end of the session, the bill would be dead. [2]
Democrat lawmakers in the Senate sought ways to block the passage of the bill. Senator Wendy Davis along with other senators made plans for her to launch into a filibuster on June 25 as to prevent a call for a vote before the end of the session, which would kill the bill. [2] [12] After ten hours, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst ruled that Davis had gone off topic after Davis began talking about a sonogram bill, forcing a vote on whether the filibuster could continue. [13] Despite efforts to pass the bill, parliamentary enquiries from Leticia R. Van de Putte and other senators, as well as disruption from the gallery caused the session to go on through midnight, the official closure of the special session. [14] Following the deadline, Republicans indicated that a vote had taken place and passed 19–11, while Democrats declared that the vote had taken place after midnight, making the vote void. [14] Dewhurst later conceded that the bill was passed after the deadline and was considered dead. [15] [16]
After the bill was thought to have been passed, a record was added to the official web page on the history of the bill. According to the page, the timestamp of the bill's passage was listed as the 26th. [17] Later, the page was taken down and altered to say that the bill was passed on the 25th. [18] According to Texas Penal Code, Section 37.10, it is a crime to make an alteration that is false in a government document or record. [18] [19] According to the Legislative Reference Library of Texas the Texas Legislature Online system "... is not the official record of those actions, and [the Legislative Reference Library staff] enters actions on TLO as a public service independently of the officers of the house or senate." [20] The Public Integrity Unit began an investigation into the events after receiving complaints. [21]
The day after Davis' filibuster, Governor Perry ordered a second special session to start July 1, 2013, with demands for the legislation to look at three specific topics including abortion. [22] [23] Perry stated that it was due to the "[...] breakdown of decorum and decency to prevent us from doing what the people of this state hired us to do." [24] During the second session, a large number of supporters and opponents of the bill showed up at the Texas Legislative building while wearing blue or orange shirts in support of their respective sides. [25] [26]
SB5 was revived as the new House Bill 2 (HB2), and which passed by July 10, 2013, by a 96–49 margin and sent the measure to the Texas Senate. [8] The Senate passed the bill on July 13, 2013, with a bipartisan vote with a 19–11 margin. [27] [28] [29] The bill was signed into law by Perry on July 18, 2013. [30] One commentator for the National Review stated that "Wendy Davis won the battle, but Rick Perry won the war." [31]
Organizations and people on both sides used websites like Twitter and the Texas Tribune to share their side and learn more, with several hashtags becoming popular on Twitter. [32] [33] [34] Coverage and a livestream of the Texas Legislature by the Texas Tribune has been said to have been the reason that the bill became national, and later international, news. [35]
Psychedelic rock band The Bright Light Social Hour were in the gallery during Senator Davis's filibuster of the first special session. The following morning the band released the song "Wendy Davis," based on the chants of the protesting crowd. The song was accompanied by a video made with protest footage taken from the band's phones, which was featured in MSNBC's coverage of the event. [36] [37]
Images of the placard carried by pro-choice activists Billy Joe Cain, his daughter Tuesday, with the message "JESUS isn't a DICK; so keep him OUT of MY VAGINA!" went viral, the resultant controversy was reported nationally and internationally. [38] [39] [40]
Many people who are against the bill have opposed the requirement that would force clinics to follow the same standards as surgical centers, since it could lead to the closure of the clinics and result in large areas of the state to not have access to a clinic. [41] Many major medical groups such as the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists argue that this bill is damaging to women's health by closing clinics and adding undue obstacles and medical expenses that can push abortions into the second trimester. [42] [43] Supporters of the legislation have stated that the purpose of the new law is to protect women's health and unborn children, citing precedents like the recent Kermit Gosnell case. [41] [44]
Abortion access in the state of Texas has seen a serious decline since the passage of Senate Bill 5. There were 44 facilities that performed abortions in Texas in 2011, When the law is fully implemented in September, that number is expected to drop to six. Amy Hagstrom Miller, the chief executive of Whole Woman's Health, which has challenged provisions of the law in court. "I tried everything I can. I just can't keep the doors open." [45]
During the period where no injunction had been placed on enforcement of the law, the number of operating abortion clinics dropped in the state from 42 to 19. [46]
A 2017 National Bureau of Economic Research paper used the legislation to identify the effects of abortion access. The study found that "as the distance to the nearest abortion provider increases from less than 25 miles to 25-50 miles, there is little change in rates of legally induced abortions. But an increase to 50-100 miles reduces legal abortion rates by 16 percent, an increase to 100-200 miles reduces abortion rates by 32 percent, and an increase to 200 or more miles reduces abortion rates by 47 percent. We also introduce a proxy for congestion that predicts additional reductions in abortion rates as fewer clinics serve more women." [47]
Another 2017 National Bureau of Economic Research paper found that "In-state abortions fell 20% and births rose 3% in counties that no longer had an abortion provider within 50 miles. Births increased 1% and contraceptive purchases rose 8% in counties without a publicly-funded family planning clinic within 25 miles." [48]
A 2016 study interviewed 23 women in Texas who had sought abortions at clinics that were no longer providing such services. It found that because of the clinic closures caused by the law, women became confused about where to obtain abortion services. The same study found that most of the women interviewed had to spend more money and time to obtain abortion services, and that their privacy was compromised by having to travel further than they previously had to. [49] Another 2016 study by the same research team found that Texas women whose nearest clinic closed had to travel on average 85 miles to have abortions, while women whose nearest clinic did not close had to travel an average of 22 miles. [50]
HB2 faced two legal challenges after its passage. The first, Planned Parenthood v. Abbott, started in 2013, challenging the admitting privileges and medical oversight of abortion-inducing drugs provisions of HB2. While the District Court had granted an injunction on enforcement of HB2, based on the "undue burden" standard established in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court stayed the injunction, and the United States Supreme Court upheld it by November 2013, allowing the law to be enforced. [2]
A second set of abortion providers filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas seeking an injunction preventing enforcement of the admitting-privileges provision as applied to physicians at two abortion facilities, one operated by Whole Woman's Health in McAllen and the other operated by Nova Health Systems in El Paso. They also sought an injunction prohibiting enforcement of both the admitting privilege and surgical-center requirements. In August 2014, the District Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and issued the sought injunction. In October, the Fifth Circuit stayed the injunction. Two weeks later, the Supreme Court vacated the stay, allowing the injunction to take effect during Texas's appeal of the district court's ruling. On June 9, 2015, the Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the lower court's ruling, finding that neither abortion restriction placed an undue burden on women as mandated in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Later that month, the Supreme Court stayed the Fifth Circuit's ruling by a 5–4 vote, preventing the restrictions from being enforced once again. On June 27, 2016, the Supreme Court ruled 5–3 that the Texas abortion restrictions are unconstitutional, striking down the two provisions of the law. [2]
Kirk Preston Watson is an American attorney and politician who has served as the 59th mayor of Austin, Texas, since 2023, previously holding the office as the 54th mayor from 1997 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, he ran unsuccessfully for Texas attorney general in the 2002 election, when he was defeated by Republican Greg Abbott, later governor of Texas. In 2006, Watson was elected to the Texas Senate from District 14.
Glenn Allen Hegar Jr. is an American attorney who serves as Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. He was a Republican member of the Texas Senate representing the 18th District, west of Houston. He succeeded fellow Republican Susan Combs as comptroller on January 2, 2015. He was elected Comptroller in the general election on November 4, 2014.
This is a timeline of reproductive rights legislation, a chronological list of laws and legal decisions affecting human reproductive rights. Reproductive rights are a sub-set of human rights pertaining to issues of reproduction and reproductive health. These rights may include some or all of the following: the right to legal or safe abortion, the right to birth control, the right to access quality reproductive healthcare, and the right to education and access in order to make reproductive choices free from coercion, discrimination, and violence. Reproductive rights may also include the right to receive education about contraception and sexually transmitted infections, and freedom from coerced sterilization, abortion, and contraception, and protection from practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM).
The legality of abortion in the United States and the various restrictions imposed on the procedure vary significantly, depending on the laws of each state or other jurisdiction, although there is no uniform federal law. Some states prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with few exceptions; others permit it up to a certain point in a woman's pregnancy, while some allow abortion throughout a woman's pregnancy. In states where abortion is legal, several classes of restrictions on the procedure may exist, such as parental consent or notification laws, requirements that patients be shown an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion, mandatory waiting periods, and counseling requirements.
Wendy Russell Davis is an American lawyer and politician from Fort Worth, Texas. A member of the Democratic Party, Davis represented the 10th district in the Texas Senate from 2009 to 2015. She previously served on the Fort Worth City Council.
Travis Paul Clardy is an attorney from Nacogdoches, Texas, who is the Republican state representative for House District 11, which includes Cherokee, Nacogdoches, and Rusk counties in East Texas.
A six-week abortion ban, also called a "fetal heartbeat bill" by proponents, is a law in the United States which makes abortion illegal as early as six weeks gestational age, which is when proponents claim that a "fetal heartbeat" can be detected. Medical and reproductive health experts, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, say that the reference to a fetal heartbeat is medically inaccurate and misleading, for a conceptus is not called a fetus until eight weeks after fertilization, as well as that at four weeks after fertilization, the embryo has no heart, only a group of cells which will become a heart. Medical professionals advise that a true fetal heartbeat cannot be detected until around 17 to 20 weeks of gestation when the chambers of the heart have become sufficiently developed.
The Hawaii Marriage Equality Act of 2013 is legislation passed by the Hawaii State Legislature as Senate Bill 1 (SB1) and signed by Governor Neil Abercrombie which legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S. state of Hawaii. Prior to the bill's enactment, same-sex couples in the state of Hawaii were allowed to form civil unions or reciprocal beneficiary relationships ; however, civil unions are both legally limited to civil officials in their performance and unrecognized by the federal government, and RBRs are even more limited by the rights and privileges accorded.
Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, 579 U.S. 582 (2016), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court announced on June 27, 2016. The Court ruled 5–3 that Texas cannot place restrictions on the delivery of abortion services that create an undue burden for women seeking an abortion. On June 28, 2016, the Supreme Court refused to hear challenges from Wisconsin and Mississippi where federal appeals courts had enjoined the enforcement of similar laws.
Abortion in Texas is illegal in most cases. 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.
June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo, 591 U.S. ___ (2020), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that a Louisiana state law placing hospital-admission requirements on abortion clinics doctors was unconstitutional. The law mirrored a Texas state law that the Court found unconstitutional in 2016 in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt (WWH).
Abortion in Alabama is illegal. Historically, Alabama's abortion laws have evolved from strict regulations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to a period of liberalization following the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide. However, Alabama has consistently enacted legislation aimed at restricting access to abortion.
Abortion in Louisiana is illegal as of August 1, 2022.
As of 2022, abortion in Missouri is illegal, with abortions only being legal in cases of medical emergency and several additional laws making access to abortion services difficult. In 2014, a poll by the Pew Research Center found that 52% of Missouri adults said that abortion should be legal vs. 46% that believe it should be illegal in all or most cases. According to a 2014 Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) study, 51% of white women in the state believed that abortion is legal in all or most cases.
Abortion in Arizona is currently legal up to 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Republican-controlled Arizona Supreme Court ruled on April 9, 2024 that the near-total ban on abortion from 1864 is constitutional. Attorney General Kris Mayes has stated that based on court rulings, enforcement of this law can begin from September 26, 2024. However, Mayes, a Democrat, has also said that as long as she is in office, then women or doctors will not be prosecuted under this law. This ban has been repealed by the Arizona state legislature and Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, but the repeal will not take effect until 90 days after the legislative session ends, which is on September 14, 2024.
Abortion in Kansas is legal. Kansas law allows for an abortion up to 20 weeks post-fertilization. After that point, only in cases of life or severely compromised physical health may an abortion be performed, with this limit set on the belief that a fetus can feel pain after that point in the pregnancy. In July 2024, the Kansas Supreme Court struck down two abortion restrictions.
Abortion is illegal in Kentucky. There were laws in Kentucky about abortion by 1900, including ones with therapeutic exceptions. In 1998, the state passed legislation that required clinics to have an abortion clinic license if they wanted to operate. By the early 2010s, members of the Kentucky Legislature attempted to ban abortion in almost all cases and had also introduced the early abortion bans. Prior to 2019, Kentucky law prohibited abortions after week 22. This changed when the state legislature passed a law that moved the prohibition to week 6 in the early part of the year. A bill passed and made effective in April 2022 lowered the threshold to 15 weeks, the second most restrictive limit in effect in the United States behind Texas, and introduced regulations that made abortion illegal until it was blocked in federal court.
Abortion in Mississippi is illegal. The new law took effect on July 7, 2022, after Mississippi State Attorney General Lynn Fitch certified on June 27, the Supreme Court decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization on June 24 of that year. State Attorney General Lynn Fitch's certification made Mississippi's 2007 'trigger law' go into effect and ban all abortions in the state, “except in the case where necessary for the preservation of the mother's life or where the pregnancy was caused by rape".
Abortion in Ohio is legal up to the point of fetal viability as a result of abortion rights being placed into the Ohio State Constitution by November 2023 Ohio Issue 1.
Abortion in Iowa is illegal after detection of embryonic cardiac-cell activity. Embryonic cardiac-cell activity can be detected from around six weeks after the pregnant individual's last menstrual period, when many women are not yet aware that they are pregnant. Exceptions for the abortion ban after detected embryonic cardiac-cell activity include some instances of rape, incest, fetal abnormalities and threats to the pregnant individual's life.