
The Senator of the State of Texas, Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, one of the original sponsors of the Texas Heartbeat Act, is now the main sponsor of a bill to clarify when a doctor can end a pregnancy to save the life of the mother.
Eric Gay / AP
hide
tilting legend
Eric Gay / AP
Since abortion became almost entirely illegal in Texas in 2021, the state has experienced a significant increase in the number of women who die during pregnancy or after childbirth. A group of state bipartite legislators wants to change this by clarifying the prohibition of state abortion with a new law.
A central actor in this effort was the Senator of the Republican State Bryan Hughes. Although he was one of the original sponsors of the Texas Heartbeat Act which has prohibited abortion, Hughes now leads to specify that there is a narrow path to the procedure.
“Everyone is suitable that the mother’s life should be protected,” said Hughes, who is the main sponsor of the new legislation, the mother’s life law. Hughes says that the bill clarifies that doctors can terminate pregnancy when the mother’s life is in danger, as well as the training of doctors on the subject.
“Most hospitals and doctors succeed, but some are not,” he said.

The bill represents a maritime change for the senator, who wrote an editorial last year in the Houston Chronicle defending the original law and blaming the media for the failures of doctors to treat women who need vital abortions.
If the bill is adopted, it would be a rare bipartite victory in the Texas Legislative Assembly, but if it will make a significant difference for pregnant women and their doctors is not clear and is a question of which health professionals through the State have not reached a consensus.
Texas is a dangerous place to be pregnant
Despite the Trump administration, which urges Americans to have more babies, pregnancy can be a dangerous business in the United States. Geography is important. A recent report by the Gender Equity Policy Institute has shown that the risk of maternal death in Texas is 155% higher than in California, where 9.5 women per 100,000 died.
Since Texas prohibited most of the abortions, the state has experienced increased maternal death rates, sepsis in women who have a miscarriage and a tense of obstetricians increasingly reluctant to practice in the state. Doctors who make a prohibited abortion can face crime accusations in the first degree, revoked their license and engage fines of at least $ 100,000.
Propublica reports show that several women died after having had an inability to obtain an abortion or a delay in obtaining one. The organization also documented septicemia levels in hospitalized women who lost a pregnancy in the second quarter.
“We have warned our colleagues that this would happen,” said the Senator of the Democratic State Carol Alvarado, one of the many Democrats who supports the bill. “Let’s find out what we have to do to give our clarity doctors.”
The bill indicates that abortions can be carried out when a woman’s life is in danger, even if it is not “imminent” and can cause a medical impairment to the mother.
Mixed reception
The bill adopted the State Senate unanimously and now goes to the Chamber. Conservative governor Greg Abbott reported his support.
But the proposed bill obtained mixed reactions elsewhere. While certain medical interest groups have approved the legislation, others are opposed.

“This bill would maintain the prohibition on the abortion of Texas in place”, reads a declaration by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “And we strongly oppose the ban on abortion and will continue to do so.”
Some abortion rights defenders argue that law is futility.
“There is a lot of language here, but everything is circular,” explains Molly Duane, lawyer for the Center for Reproductive Rights. “In my legal opinion, this would make the exception more confusing.”
Duane stresses that determining when a person’s life is in danger is a subjective question of medical interpretation and legal language to quantify the risk will be inevitably defective.
“How much should someone be sick for this exception in play?” she asked.
This is a question, she says, who does not answer – it is not clear if the respondent is possible.
“It brings me back to the inevitable conclusion that the exceptions simply do not work in practice.”
Dr. Todd Ivey, obstetrician in Houston, is dealing with fatal circumstances for his pregnant patients in recent years. He hopes that legislation could give clarity.
“Personally, I feel like it will help me feel more guaranteed to provide safe care for women and discuss options with women.”
Ivey remembers a patient who was fighting against metastatic breast cancer and had four young children at home. She had to terminate a pregnancy in order to continue chemotherapy.
“I literally spent eight hours more to call to try to find someone who would accept it,” explains Ivey. “Try to find an institution to provide this care so that she can get her care against cancer.”
Under this bill, says Ivey, this patient could have ended his pregnancy without delay. That said, he thinks that the proposal has its shortcomings. “I don’t think it’s a perfect bill,” said Ivey.
It is difficult to define “endangering life”
The Texas Abortion Act does not allow any exceptions for rape, incest or deadly fetal anomalies. The original law involved an exception for medical emergencies, but offered a troubled definition of what the term really meant. Doctors who do not respect the ban on abortion in Texas could lose their medical license, face crime accusations or risk life in life, which is still the case.
A previous attempt by the Senator of the Democratic State, Ann Johnson, tried to give doctors clear advice on things like the extra-uterine pregnancy and the broken membranes, a condition that can quickly lead to deadly infections for the mother if the uterus is not emptied. But many considered that the modified law still did not offer the legal guarantees that doctors had to exercise their medical judgment and avoid severe sanctions.

Texas is not the only state that has sought to clarify the abortion exceptions. The southern Dakota made a video in order to educate its doctors on the law of abortion. Kentucky legislators have worked to add a list of medical conditions that would be considered exemptions. In Tennessee, legislators tried to add an exemption for women with pregnancies to which the baby would not survive.
None of these efforts offered a national model for states seeking to do the same.
‘My life was never at risk’
Kaitlyn Kash is a defender of abortion rights that came to the cause after having known her own medical crisis. She left the state for an abortion after her fetus was diagnosed with a rare fatal condition.
She remembers the appointment of the doctor in which she learned the diagnosis.
“They kept telling me all these horrible things as” the fatal anomaly “and” incompatible with life “,” suffocation at birth “,` `bones breaking in utero”, “life medical care”, “hospital for life” remains for life “,” short lifetime “,” she recalls. “You’re just sitting there, Oh my God, every time I ask a question, it gets worse.”
She stresses that this new law would not have changed its situation.
“My life has never been at risk under the qualifications of the medical exemption,” she said.

Kash says that this new law does not take into account the threats of the mental health of a mother – like the transport of a long -term baby who will not survive. The new law, she says, would not give women the latitude they need to make decisions about what is best for their own health.
“I hope this law gives doctors the clarity they need,” she said. “But it’s a little piece of this larger image.”
Published by Jane Greenhalgh