Senator José Rodríguez files Senate Bills 730 and 468 to promote women’s health

Austin – State Sen. José Rodríguez filed Senate Bill 730, a bill that repeals parts of House Bill 2, a medically unnecessary anti-abortion measure that restricts access to health care for women, particularly minority and low-income women. S.B. 730 repeals the admitting privileges and ambulatory surgical center requirements of H.B. 2, which passed during the third called Special Session of the 83rd Texas Legislature in 2013. Rodríguez also filed Senate Bill 468, which allows a teen mother to consent to medical procedures related to the delivery of her child as well as access to contraception.

The senator is scheduled to speak on the bills at 1:50 p.m. on the Capitol’s south steps at the Trust. Respect. Access Advocacy Day Rally, which is from 1:30-2:30 p.m. CST today.

Beginning with budget cuts to family planning in 2009 and the Women’s Health Program in 2011 and ending with H.B. 2 in 2013, H.B. 2 was the culmination of a years-long effort to restrict abortion that led to a systematic dismantling of a health care safety net that was serving hundreds of thousands of women in a cost-effective manner. Among its other provisions, H.B. 2 required health care clinics that provide abortions to be certified as ambulatory surgical centers, and required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

Numerous health care groups, including the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Texas Medical Association, and the Texas Hospital Association, opposed the measure, noting that nothing in the bill was medically necessary.

“H.B. 2 was not good public policy. It amounts to government interference in the doctor-patient relationship and a women’s right to make her own decisions regarding her health,” Rodríguez said. “This law has had a profound effect on access to women’s health services, and it continues to be challenged in the courts, which is unnecessarily costing Texas taxpayers money in legal fees. The right to safe, legal abortion is constitutionally protected, and we cannot allow state legislatures to create costly barriers to our constitutional rights.”

The admitting privileges provision has caused 19 of the state’s 41 licensed health centers providing safe and legal abortion to stop providing that service. With the closing and re-openings of health centers based on court rulings on the ambulatory surgical center and admitting privileges provisions, only 17 centers are open today. These measures have dramatically reduced access to safe and legal abortion throughout the state, especially in the Rio Grande Valley and vast stretches of west Texas.

Because of these restrictions, a woman’s ability to make personal decisions about her reproductive health care in Texas will depend on where she lives. If the ambulatory surgical center provisions of the bill are upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court and the Supreme Court does not take action, the number of health centers that provide safe and legal abortion in Texas could be as few as seven – and only in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio.

***

José Rodríguez represents Texas Senate District 29, which includes the counties of El Paso, Hudspeth, Culberson, Jeff Davis, and Presidio. He represents both urban and rural constituencies, and more than 350 miles of the Texas-Mexico border. Senator Rodríguez currently serves as the Chairman of the Senate Hispanic Caucus, and is a member of the Senate Committees on Education; Health and Human Services; Veteran Affairs and Military Installations; Nominations; and Agriculture, Water, and Rural Affairs.

-30-

« »