Abortion

Every Anti-Abortion Bill in the Texas Legislature This Session Has Failed

Man. We remember a time, long ago last legislative session, when all your state lawmakers wanted to do was talk about abortion and how much they hated it. They were super-duper against it, as they could not seem to stop talking about, so much so that they cheerily decimated the Texas Women's Health ... More >>

Infighting in the Pro-Life Movement Killed a Bill to Reform End-of-Life Care

A bill aimed to reform end-of-life care in Texas is likely to die in the state House. Although the bill made it through the Texas Senate, Representative Lois Kolkhorst, a Brenham Republican, told the Austin American-Statesman that it won't get a vote due to splits among House Republicans. Currently ... More >>

Texas Politicians Use Gosnell Verdict to Remind You How Much They Want to Outlaw Abortion

If there's one thing everyone in America can agree on this morning, it's that Kermit Gosnell is disgusting and belongs in an especially dank and fetid section of some sort of subterranean prison. In a case that millions of talking heads have been shouting at you about from your TV, the Philadelphia ... More >>

Sex Ed the Texas Way

Dallas wants to close the book on abstinence-only education. Texas keeps getting in the way.

The Pro-Life Movement is Divided Over Bill to Reform End-of-Life Care

Last week, Texas Alliance for Life paused briefly in its crusade to enact increasingly onerous abortion restrictions and shifted its focus to the other end of the human lifespan. The group urged its supporters to lobby for passage of SB 303, state Senator Bob Deuell's bill to reform end-of-life care ... More >>

Feds Bypass State, Give $13 Million for Family Planning Directly to Women's Health Coalition

Maybe you're not a Yiddish speaker, but you need a handy illustration of the concept of "chutzpah." In Spanish: cojones. Or in English, if you insist: king-sized brass balls. If you need a real-world demonstration of this cross-cultural concept, you have only to look at how your state-level bureaucr ... More >>

Senate Committee Approves New, Ridiculous Standards That Could Shut Down Most Abortion Clinics In Texas

Texas' Senate Health and Human Services committee approved another measure late yesterday straight out of the anti-abortion playbook: a bill that would require all medical facilities that perform abortions to meet the standards of an "ambulatory surgical center." Opponents of the bill are calling it ... More >>

Texas Right to Life Pushes More Bunk Science on "Preborn Pain," Calls Observer "Anti-Life"

Over the past couple months, we've brought you periodic updates on Texas Right to Life's quest to help pass a bill banning all abortions after 20 weeks. They've finally found a sponsor to carry that bill: State Representative Jodie Laubenberg filed the "Preborn Pain Act" this time last week. Texas R ... More >>

Poll: Majority of Texans Favor Both "Fetal Pain" Proposal and Abortion Rights

Yesterday, Collin County state Representative Jodie Laubenberg filed a bill that would ban all abortions after 20 weeks, calling it the "Preborn Pain Act." The bill is premised on deeply questionable science which claims that fetuses can feel pain at that point in a pregnancy, and ignores a heap of ... More >>

State Rep. Jodie Laubenberg Files Pro-Life Favorite "Pre-Born Pain" Bill

Back in December, Governor Rick Perry announced with much pomp and circumstance that he would support the passage of a "fetal pain" bill this session in the Legislature. "Fetal pain" is one of the pet legislative projects of pro-life group Texas Right to Life this year; it's a total ban on abortions ... More >>

The 10 Weirdest Members of Congress

Texas Reps. Say Planned Parenthood Recruits Schoolkids, Aim to End Its Sex Ed Effort

Texas parents beware: your children are being "imperiled" by "abortion peddlers" who want to teach them "sex education." No. No, they're not. Although at some point someone might want to teach them to put a condom on a banana, and conservative lawmakers, predictably, want to make damn sure that per ... More >>

Texas AG Announces "Choose Life Advisory Committee" to Distribute Money Raised by Those Anti-Abortion License Plates

In May of 2011, in the midst of various other anti-abortion measures, Texas lawmakers approved SB 257, authored by Representative Larry Phillips, a Republican from Sherman, and Senator John Carona, a Republican from Dallas. The bill allowed for the sale of state-issued specialty "Choose Life" licens ... More >>

Texas Conservatives Observe 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade With Ridiculous Press Releases

Today is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark court case that originated in Texas with Norma McCorvey and ultimately led to the Supreme Court sweeping away a number of state and federal abortion restrictions. Because of Roe, terminating a pregnancy in the first trimester is between a wo ... More >>

Vanity Fair Traces the Dallas Years of Norma McCorvey, the Plaintiff in Roe v. Wade

In 1969, Norma McCorvey was just 21 and living in Dallas with her father when she got pregnant for the third time. She was poor, working menial jobs and couldn't afford another child. She wanted an abortion, but she also couldn't afford the trip to one of the six states that allowed the practice at ... More >>

Judge Denies Planned Parenthood's Request to Let Them Back in Texas Women's Health Program

Let's do this quickly, so you can incorporate it into all the sorrows you're about drown after you leave work today. A state judge has denied Planned Parenthood's request for a temporary injunction that would have allowed them to rejoin the Texas Women's Health Program. According to Mary Tuma, a r ... More >>

Texas House Rep Allen Fletcher Files Bill To Tackle Non-Existent Problem of Sex-Selective Abortion

With the shiny new session of the Texas Legislature a mere six days away, your lawmakers are gearing up to debate some important issues, like handsy TSA agents and whether we should drug-test people who have the audacity to file for emergency welfare relief. But, as ever, some legislators are most ... More >>

In Never-Ending Battle Between Texas and Planned Parenthood, Judge Says PP Can Be Blocked From New Women's Health Program

For those of you who have been following the ongoing, never-ending, multi-court battle of Texas vs. Planned Parenthood, we'll make this quick: Planned Parenthood is out of the Texas Women's Health Program. Again. For now. Now, let's all heave a huge collective sigh and revisit the longer version ... More >>

Texas Wants a Detailed Report on All Abortions and Will Discipline Doctors Who Don't Comply

Last legislative session, Representative Bill Zedler, a Republican from Arlington, wanted to hear about abortions in Texas. All of them. In great detail. Zedler filed a piece of legislation that would have required a woman having an abortion to fill out and submit to the state a detailed question ... More >>

Rick Perry Supports "Fetal Pain" Measure, Vows to Make Abortion a "Thing of the Past"

Perhaps you were hoping that the upcoming legislative session wouldn't be yet another round of conservative lawmakers vying with one another to show just how deeply and sincerely anti-abortion they are. Or maybe that's exactly what you look for in a lawmaker: an eagle eye and a vise grip on every Te ... More >>

Texas Anti-Abortion Group Wants to See a "Fetal Pain" Bill Passed This Session

Seven months ago, the influential anti-abortion advocacy group Americans United for Life released its annual report, Defending Life 2012, featuring an enthusiastic blurb from Governor Rick Perry, who called the report "ammunition in a fight that is far from over." In return, AUL was full of praise f ... More >>

Texas Now Serves Fewer Family Planning Patients and Spends More Money To Do It

In the last legislative session, Texas lawmakers cut the state's family planning budget by two-thirds, a loss of around $73.6 million over the next two years. The reason behind this, naturally, was that "family planning" is clearly a secret code word for "abortion." "Of course this is a war on bir ... More >>

Planned Parenthood V. Texas, Round 1,867: Judge Rules PP Can Stay in the WHP, For Now

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but it's true: the argument between the state of Texas and Planned Parenthood over the Women's Health Program looks like it's never, ever going to end. This case has dragged itself through state courts, federal courts, and back down to the state level again, ... More >>

Texas Will "Immediately" Defund Planned Parenthood After Court Refuses to Hear its Plea

That faint popping sound you heard last night was Governor Rick Perry uncorking a nice bottle of bubbly, after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday refused a request by Planned Parenthood to rehear the case over its ban from the new Texas Women's Health Program (TWHP). Texas, it appears ... More >>

"Abortion Affiliates" Banned From the New Texas Women's Health Program, But Doctors Allowed To Talk About Abortion

The new Texas Women's Health Program is really going to be special. And by "special," we mean terrible. But as the Texas Tribune reports , state officials have made one tiny concession in response to complaints from women's advocacy and medical groups: Doctors will now be allowed to discuss the exis ... More >>

A Romney-Ryan Win Would Mean a Ban on Abortions, But Bans Don't Stop Abortions

Lead editorial in The New York Times this morning -- "If Roe v Wade Goes" -- got me thinking: let's say the Romney/Ryan ticket wins. How long will it take for Texas to make abortion illegal? Romney used to support Roe v. Wade, but now he joins Ryan in proposing that abortion be made a crime except ... More >>

New England Journal of Medicine Says Texas' Family Planning Cuts Are A Public Health Disaster

It's been nearly a year since Texas legislators slashed the state's family planning funding, diverting $73 million to a variety of other programs. That was about two-thirds of the total family planning budget, and the conservative lawmakers who orchestrated the cuts were vocal about why they'd done ... More >>

At the Opening of a Houston Pregnancy Center, Rick Perry Pledges To Help "Make Abortion A Thing of the Past"

Governor Rick Perry, it may shock you to learn, is not such a big fan of abortion. Perry vowed some time ago to create a new, Texas-run version of the Women's Health Program, one that would ban doctors from discussing or "promoting" abortion with their patients. It would also explicitly bar Planned ... More >>

Appeals Court Says Planned Parenthood Can Be Banned From the Women's Health Program, Rick Perry Rejoices

Texas' game of women's health pingpong continues. A panel of judges from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a preliminary injunction yesterday that had allowed Planned Parenthood to remain in the Medicaid Women's Health Program. In other words, PP is out. Again. The nonprofit was boote ... More >>

Is the Bush Institute's Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon Program Too Little Too Late?

At right you see former First Lady Laura Bush, cheerily painting a door at a health clinic in Zambia. The photo was taken earlier this month by a staffer at the Bush Institute, part of the press surrounding the former first couple's visit to Africa earlier this month. It's also included in today's D ... More >>

Now Texas Wants its Women's Health Program to Ban Doctors from Talking about Abortion

As Governor Rick Perry vows not to take any of that filthy federal money to expand Medicaid in Texas, state lawmakers may also have to find another $39 million next year to keep the Medicaid Women's Health Program alive. These days, the WHP has been going through some prolonged death throes. Texa ... More >>

Americans United For Life: Texas Is Pleasingly Abortion-Unfriendly, But It Could Do Better

Americans United For Life, one of the nation's largest anti-abortion advocacy groups, has released its annual report, Defending Life 2012, complete with an enthusiastic blurb from Governor Rick Perry. On the whole, they seem very pleased with Texas and its "aggressive legislative action" to restrict ... More >>

Texas Can't Kick Planned Parenthood Out of the WHP After All, Appeals Court Says

Earlier this week, Judge Jerry Smith of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a preliminary injunction that kept Texas from kicking Planned Parenthood out of the Women's Health Program. It looked as though that was the first step toward a decision allowing Texas to keep Planned Parenthood out ... More >>

Judge: Texas Can Kick Planned Parenthood Out of the Women's Health Program

When we said yesterday Planned Parenthood could remain part of the Texas's Medicaid Women's Health Program "for now," we didn't know "now" would last less than 24 hours. A Fifth Circuit appeals judge has overturned yesterday's preliminary injunction blocking Texas from kicking Planned Parenthood o ... More >>

Planned Parenthood Wins Battle in War on Women as Judge Puts Off Exclusion from WHP

The scuffle between Texas and the feds over women's healthcare was supposed to get real tomorrow, when Planned Parenthood was scheduled to be barred from being a provider for the state's Medicaid Women's Health Program. But earlier today, Federal District Judge Lee Yeakel granted the non-profit its ... More >>

Rep. Bill Zedler Wants To Hear About Your Abortion, Despite What the Legislature Says

In this last legislative session, the one that turned out to be pretty terrible for both abortion providers and family planning clinics, Arlington state Representative Bill Zedler had a dream. That dream, as we told you about at the time, was to require women and their doctors fill out and submit to ... More >>

Anti-Abortion Prayer, Politics and Tornadoes from God Raise Spirits at Pastor Lou Engle's Rally

By 7:15 on Thursday night, women were already crying. By 7:30, a few were speaking in tongues, their arms raised heavenward, or kneeling in the chilly concrete aisles of the Dallas Convention Center's Area Hall C. Onstage, a muscular, clean-cut guy with sandy hair and a black V-neck T-shirt strummed ... More >>

The Strange Tale of Tucker Max and His Failed $500,000 Planned Parenthood Donation

For the past few days, several corners of the Internet have been all a-flutter over a recent piece on Forbes.com by a man named Ryan Holiday, who describes himself as a "strategist for big authors and big brands." Holiday apparently had tried to arrange a donation of $500,000 from one of his clien ... More >>

Federal Medicaid Agency Lays Out Just How The Women's Health Program Will End

What prompted Governor Rick Perry's frenzied bout of outraged tweeting about the Women's Health Program yesterday? As much as we'd like to speculate that it was a bad batch of PCP (and will continue to do so privately, purely for our own amusement, not because it's at all true), it was actually one ... More >>

Planned Parenthood Director Turned Pro-Life Superstar Is Suing PP For Alleged Medicaid Fraud

As long as we're on the general theme of "unpleasant events that are somehow related to the Medicaid Women's Health Program," let's throw this one in there too: Abby Johnson, who was until a couple of years ago the director of a clinic that was part of Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast, is now su ... More >>

Texas Alliance For Life Executive Director Not Sure Why No One Is "Cheering For Rick Perry"

Pro-life groups in Texas are in an awkward position these days, as the Medicaid Women's Health Program fights for its life. On one hand, they celebrate anything that they perceive as a blow to Planned Parenthood (which Catholic Pro-Life Committee of North Texas Executive Director Karen Garnett once ... More >>

Rick Perry Vows to Save the Medicaid Women's Health Program from the Evil Feds

Update, March 10: Federal Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced late Friday in Houston that federal funding to the WHP would be cut. She said the program will wind down over the next several months, and that the feds are considering funding Planned Parenthood directly. In r ... More >>

Rick Perry and State Health Commissioner Insist Obama Hates Women, Loves Abortion

A few days ago, we told you that Texas's Medicaid Women's Health Program appears to be on death's door, which could leave some 130,000 low-income Texas women without vital medical care. We also mentioned that Gov. Rick Perry's administration appeared eager to blame the program's end on the feds broa ... More >>

Medicaid Women's Health Program Is One Step Closer To Death

The Medicaid Women's Health Program provides some 130,000 Texas women with vital medical care: family planning, birth control, cancer screenings and annual exams. And for that, of course, it must die. That, at least, has long been the case as far as Republican lawmakers are concerned. And after last ... More >>

Maybe It's Time for Komen to Change Those Pink Ribbons to GOP Red

We still have to read between the lines to glimpse the bottom line on the Komen Foundation's attack on Planned Parenthood, but the slowly emerging truth of the matter doesn't bode well. Karen Handel, the Komen executive who resigned yesterday, has a weird talent for letting the cat out of the bag e ... More >>

Nancy Brinker, Komen Foundation Fell Victim to the Great Texas Echo Chamber

​Wait, wait. We haven't finished the conversation yet about whether Rick Perry has embarrassed Texas so badly we can never again show our faces outside the state. Are you telling me now we've got to have the same conversation already about Nancy Brinker? What if people start connecting the do ... More >>

As Brinker Tries to Explain Komen's Split From Planned Parenthood, an Inside Account

As you know by now, locally based Susan G. Komen for the Cure has cut off its funding to Planned Parenthood, meaning it'll no longer help pay for mammograms for women who can't afford them; why, there's Nancy Brinker herself above, attempting to explain Komen's "new granting strategies" concerning i ... More >>

How One Man's Witch Hunt Made Komen Decide to Cut Off Grants to Planned Parenthood

Perhaps you've heard by now: The Dallas-based Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation (don't bother clicking the link; the site's not loading) will no longer be giving grant money to Planned Parenthood, a move Planned Parenthood of North Texas says comes after "anti-women's health groups have repeate ... More >>

Judge OKs Texas's Sonogram Law, Making Governor Rick Perry Very, Very Happy

Texas's dandy new "sonogram law" -- which requires abortion-seeking women to look at a sonogram, hear a description of it from her doctor and listen to a fetal heartbeat -- is legal, a federal court ruled today. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a temporary injunction, issued by Judge ... More >>

A Successful Health Program May End Thanks to Texas's Quest to Kill Planned Parenthood

ViaYou, sir, must not be a Texas legislator.​It's been a good 14 minutes since the state twisted its rusty knife into the already-wounded gut of women's healthcare. But fear not: There's a huge, ugly storm brewing between the state and federal governments over the Medicaid Women's Health Progr ... More >>