REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

In August, a judge ruled that the state’s near-total abortion ban should not apply to medically complicated pregnancies. The state appealed that ruling to the Texas Supreme Court, putting it on hold.

Reporter Eleanor Klibanoff and photojournalist Shelby Tauber talked with Tribune editor Terri Langford about their reporting on a story of a 26-year-old Texan who was told her twin sons had a zero percent chance of survival after childbirth.

Twenty women are challenging the state’s abortion laws, saying they were unable to get the health care they needed for their medically complex pregnancies.

The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires hospitals to stabilize any patient in the emergency room, even, the Biden administration noted in recent guidance, if that requires performing an abortion. Texas sued over the guidance last year.

Last year, Judge Matthew Kacmsaryk closed off one of the only avenues for Texas teens to get confidential contraception. The 5th Circuit will hear arguments on the controversial case Monday.

Lubbock is now the fourth, and largest, county to pass the ordinance which would punish people through civil lawsuits for aiding pregnant women seeking abortions outside of Texas.

The city allocated $500,000 to establish the fund, but has not yet said how that money will be used. The lawsuit asks a judge to block the money from going to groups that pay for out-of-state abortions.

Miranda Michel, 26, couldn’t leave the state for an abortion. But she also couldn’t bear the idea of carrying a nonviable pregnancy to term.

The groups work in dozens of school districts across the state, but some public health experts say their curricula can be misleading and biased.

Syphilis rates in Texas continue to climb, alarming healthcare workers who see the highest increases among pregnant people and newborns. A shortage of treatment is complicating efforts to combat it.

Planned Parenthood has managed to stay open in Texas despite the state’s best efforts to shut it down. But a lawsuit in front of a conservative judge poses an existential threat.

State District Court Judge Jessica Mangrum on Friday issued a temporary exemption to Texas’ abortion ban. Hours later, the attorney general’s office filed an appeal, which blocked the order.

This is the first analysis of live births since the law, which banned abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, went into effect in September 2021.

The impact of Texas’ near-total ban on abortion is coming into focus as patients and providers leave the state, legal challenges languish and the state’s social safety net braces for a baby boom.

Two days after delivering a stillborn baby, an Austin Public Health employee was notified she would not qualify for the city’s eight weeks of paid parental leave.

Pregnant moms on Medicaid will get health care coverage for a year, patients will get more detailed billing and nurses will get help with school loans. But efforts failed to gain steam for legalizing fentanyl test strips, increasing the pool of mental health professionals who accept Medicaid and expanding Medicaid benefits to more Texans.

New moms will be able to keep their health insurance for a full year under a proposal the Senate passed Sunday. A last-minute anti-abortion amendment means the bill will go back to the House.

Texas’ abortion laws look likely to remain about where they were at the beginning of the legislative session, as key deadlines pass without any movement on abortion-related bills.

The women are accused of helping their friend terminate her pregnancy, but they now claim her ex-husband, who brought the lawsuit, knew she had obtained the medication and did nothing to stop her.

The legal challenge to mifepristone now returns to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

New moms would be able to maintain their health insurance for up to a year after childbirth under the proposal, which also passed the House last session. The Senate previously reduced it to just six months of coverage.

The U.S. Supreme Court originally planned to weigh in on the abortion pill case by Wednesday night, but extended the hold on the Amarillo ruling until Friday at midnight.

A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction in February, blocking a limited number of prosecutors from going after anyone who helps a Texan travel out of state to terminate a pregnancy. This has given some abortion funds confidence to resume operations.

Anti-abortion advocates are trying to revive the long-dormant 1873 Comstock Act, which banned mailing of anything related to abortion or contraception, in a lawsuit about mifepristone, an abortion-inducing drug.

U.S. District Matthew Kacsmaryk was once deputy counsel for the the First Liberty Institute, the Plano-based conservative Christian law firm.

Marcus Silva of Galveston alleges three of his ex-wife’s friends helped her illegally get abortion pills to end her pregnancy.

Pregnancy forced Destiny Williams to quit her job. She almost died during childbirth. Now with a newborn in tow, she’s struggling to build a more stable life for her and her children.

Five women announced a new lawsuit Tuesday, marking the first time patients directly affected by new abortion laws have sought to challenge them in court.

Davis, who is best known for her 13-hour filibuster to block a 2013 abortion bill, joins the group at a low point for reproductive rights in Texas.

Davis, best known for her 13-hour filibuster of a 2013 abortion bill, sought to block the state’s ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. A federal judge found Davis had not “articulated a credible, imminent threat.”

Abbott lauded the efforts of the anti-abortion movement after a landmark year for opponents of the procedure.

While Democrats and the far-right edge of the Republican Party remain focused on abortion, leaders in both chambers have not yet spent much time discussing the issue this session.

Women in Deep East Texas drive over an hour to give birth after the last obstetrics unit in the area closed in 2019. But if closing the unit was hard, reopening it is proving nearly impossible.

The Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee report, delayed by more than three months, estimates that up to 90% of the deaths may have been preventable. Severe complications from pregnancy and childbirth also increased significantly.

Due in September, the report was delayed to allow a full review of 2019 cases, the state health agency said. That review didn’t change the findings.

The court’s ruling does not overturn the 2021 law, which banned abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. It also does not impact the near-total bans on abortion that went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

In conservative Kansas and Kentucky, voters turned out in droves and crossed party lines to support abortion access. In Texas — where candidates, not issues, were on the ballot — there was no such surge in support.

Several new studies show that not everyone denied access to abortions in Texas can travel out of state, but more people than ever before are seeking ways to self-manage abortions with medication at home.

Several abortion funds have sued anti-abortion activist Mark Lee Dickson, who called them “criminal organizations,” for defamation.

In a visit to Texas’ capital, Harris rallied the state’s voters around protecting reproductive and voting rights at the ballot box next month by keeping Democrats in power in Congress. The topic of immigration was absent from Harris’ speeches Saturday.

A federal judge who previously quashed the subpoena ruled that the attorney general must take the witness stand in a lawsuit from abortion funds.

Lawyers for the state argue they didn’t know the attorney general would be served at home. Emails from opposing counsel show they tried repeatedly to serve him through his attorneys.

“It was just a matter of time before the baby died, or maybe I’d have to go through the trauma of carrying to term knowing I wasn’t bringing a baby home,” said 27-year-old Lauren Hall. “I couldn’t do that.”

Lawmakers say they need the latest pregnancy-related death data to more precisely address the problem during the legislative session. But delays means they won’t see it until after the session ends.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor’s ruling could threaten access to sexual and reproductive health care for more than 150 million working Americans on employer-sponsored health care plans. The ruling will likely be appealed.

In parts of Mexico where abortion has not been legalized, women rely on volunteer networks to provide medication and emotional support for at-home abortions. As access to abortion is shut down in Texas, similar networks are being built in the U.S.

Texas, the largest state to restrict abortions, now has three significant bans on the books, setting up a potential legal minefield.

The suit comes two days before the state’s newest abortion ban, triggered by the overturning of Roe v. Wade, goes into effect.

The restriction, which was revived after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, was put in place amid concerns about declining white birth rates and as the medical profession formalized.

Experts on adoption and abortion say lawmakers must work to provide financial and mental health support to birth parents, adoptive parents and adoptees in order to make the adoption process a better option for those with unwanted pregnancies.

The school district joins a national movement to provide access to period supplies.

Las clínicas privadas en la Ciudad de México ofrecen abortos a una fracción del precio en Estados Unidos. También hay clínicas y hospitales públicos que ofrecen acceso gratuito al aborto, incluso para personas extranjeras.

Before abortion was legal in parts of Mexico, an extensive “accompaniment” system grew to help women safely terminate pregnancies on their own. Its organizers are now moving abortion-inducing medication across the border and helping replicate the system in the United States.

Private clinics offer abortions at a fraction of the cost in the United States. City public health clinics may be more difficult to navigate but offer abortions free of charge, including for noncitizens.

Antes de que el aborto fuera legal en algunos estados de México, los grupos de “acompañamiento” establecieron un sistema de apoyo para que las mujeres interrumpieran sus embarazos en casa. Ahora, estos grupos están ayudando a trasladar al norte de la frontera medicamento para abortar y a replicar este modelo en los Estados Unidos.

The changing legal landscape is raising questions for public colleges about how to talk to students about reproductive health care options and creating hesitancy among students about whether they can trust their universities’ health centers.

Coffee was just 30 when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with her argument that the constitutional right to privacy extended to abortion: “I thought, OK, well this is done now. I was thinking the [abortion] question was settled for as long as the country lasted.”

About 40% of women who get abortions in the U.S. are Black, and advocates say abortion bans like Texas’ will increase their health and financial risks.

Health workers caring for pregnant women now face a bewildering array of legal questions.

It’s unclear whether Texas’ tangled web of abortion laws would make it a crime to pay for a Texan to leave the state to get an abortion, but the threat has compelled the funds to cease services.

In 2016, the Supreme Court blocked onerous regulations that had shuttered half of Texas’ abortion providers. On Friday, the court’s new conservative majority cited that case in overturning the constitutional protection for abortion.

The Supreme Court cited safe haven laws as an abortion alternative when it overturned Roe v. Wade. But Texas’ policy lacks funding and just 172 infants have been relinquished since 2009.

Advocates say abortion has often been the safest option for many experiencing intimate partner violence.

Abortion clinics, and the patients they serve, have always had to adapt to changing laws and tightening restrictions. But the Supreme Court seems poised to deliver the fatal blow they’ve been dodging for decades.

Women’s health care providers are holding back when counseling pregnant patients about treatment options, doctors report pharmacists are hesitant to distribute some prescriptions, and OB-GYN training is diminishing for Texas medical school students.

More than a quarter of women of childbearing age are uninsured in Texas, the highest rate in the nation, and the state has chosen to cap Medicaid benefits for new moms earlier than other states.

Providers, advocates and doctors spent much of the day Tuesday reassuring people that the procedure remains legal until the high court issues an official opinion overturning it.

Pregnant Texans have found ways to access abortion despite the restrictions, while clinics have pivoted their operations to focus on out-of-state care.

A group of young women have teamed up with a prestigious Houston law firm to get the state to stop charging sales tax on menstrual products, arguing they qualify as “wound care dressings.”

The full and often unchecked power of the prosecutor was on display when a South Texas woman was charged with murder for a self-induced abortion.

The Rio Grande Valley, often seen as a reliable vote against abortion, has a long history of advocacy to increase access to the procedure.

After Texas passed a ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, more Texans went to Oklahoma for the procedure than to any other state. Now, in a surprise move, the Oklahoma Legislature is cutting off that option.

Cain has accused the nonprofits of being “criminal organizations” and has ordered them to stop funding abortions in Texas. Lawyers representing the funds are demanding a retraction.

Paxton tweeted Friday that investigations into parents of transgender children would continue as a result of his appeal. But the state’s child welfare agency won’t confirm the status of the investigations.

The U.S. Supreme Court left abortion providers only the narrowest avenue to challenge the ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. Friday’s Texas Supreme Court ruling has effectively ended that federal legal challenge.

The COVID vaccine is proven safe during all stages of pregnancy, and pregnant patients are at an increased risk of getting seriously ill if they contract the virus. Still, many pregnant women hesitate.

The decision, hailed by abortion opponents as a victory, is another indication of how legal protections for abortion have been gutted in Texas.

Only 40% of Texas’ rural hospitals offer labor and delivery services, forcing some patients to drive hundreds of miles to give birth. With nurses in short supply, more hospitals are considering cutting those services entirely.

Texas, the birthplace of Roe v. Wade, has been at the forefront of major battles over abortion access ever since. Friday’s ruling ensures the state remains on the frontlines.

Beginning today, a new law restricts abortion-inducing medication, the most common abortion method in Texas.

Six justices — including two who voted against blocking Senate Bill 8 when it first went into effect — voiced concern that other states could replicate the controversial law’s enforcement mechanism.

The high court’s proceedings will focus on how Senate Bill 8 is enforced. It’s hard to predict what the court could decide, but its ruling will likely determine the future of abortion care in Texas and shape the legal battles to come.

The Supreme Court had previously declined to block the law but didn't rule on its constitutionality.