Last month Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bipartisan bill said to give doctors more legal protection if they have to perform an emergency abortion, but some experts say it does not go far enough.
Molly Duane at the Center for Reproductive Rights says House Bill 3058 allows doctors an affirmative defense if they provide an abortion to a woman whose water broke before the fetus was viable.That is a life threatening condition for the woman.
15 women are suing Texas because they were denied care in cases where a pregnancy threatened their life. Two of the plaintiffs are doctors. Duane is their attorney and says this bill creates no new exceptions to the Texas abortion ban. "It's just a defense a doctor can use if and when they are called into court. It shifts the burden to the physician to prove this affirmative defense applies to them instead of having the burden on the prosecutor."
This bill allows for the same defense for ectopic pregnancies, which occur when a fertilized egg grows outside of the uterus. Duane says those were already excluded from the definition of abortion before this law.
She says the exemptions exist on paper, "but in practice they are hardly functional at all. Patients are denied abortion care all the time in situations that any normal person would consider a risk to their life and their health."
It does not address other life threatening or difficult pregnancy complications and does not allow for an abortion in which the fetus will not survive.
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