Abortion

Court Lets Some Clinics Reopen, but Getting an Abortion in Dallas Is Still Tough

Right now, as this story is being written, four clinics provide abortions in Dallas: Abortion Advantage, Planned Parenthood, Routh Street Women's Clinic and Southwest Women's Surgery Center. Two, Whole Woman's Health and Planned Parenthood, are open in Fort Worth. But read quickly, because it's poss ... More >>

Texas Equal Access and Vice Palace Hold Fundraiser for Texas Abortions This Saturday

Over the past year, access to safe and legal abortion has taken some serious hits from the Texas Legislature. After the passage and implementation of HB2, one of the country's most restrictive abortion laws, the majority of the state's abortion facilities were forced to close. In the wake of these a ... More >>

Supreme Court Taps Brakes on HB2, 13 Abortion Clinics Reopen for Now

Late Tuesday afternoon, the Supreme Court cleared the way for reopening 13 abortion-providing health clinics that shuttered following an October 2 ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that allowed Texas to begin enforcing the most draconian portions of House Bill 2, the state's 2013 anti- ... More >>

The 5th Circuit Gave Every Woman in Texas the Middle Finger Thursday Night

Thursday night, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay that allows Texas to fully enforce House Bill 2 -- the anti-abortion measure passed by the state in 2013. As of this morning, there are eight healthcare facilities in the state that can legally provide abortion, one for every 675,0 ... More >>

Vice Went Undercover at a Dallas Crisis Pregnancy Center

Vice magazine posted a video expose of crisis pregnancy centers to its YouTube channel earlier this week. Beyond the standard stuff -- like anti-abortion activists admitting that the best crisis centers are ones that women think are abortion clinics -- the video includes undercover footage from Whit ... More >>

The Future of Women's Healthcare in Texas Looks Bleak. What's Next?

Listening to the oral arguments before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday confirmed what advocates for reproductive rights feared upon seeing the three-judge panel selected to hear the Texas' appeal of a lower-court ruling striking down two sections of House Bill 2, the 2013 legislation ... More >>

Everything You Need to Know About Friday's Court Hearing on Texas' Abortion Law

It's September 11, and the harshest restriction in Texas' new abortion law, its requirement that all abortions take place at an ambulatory surgical center, has yet to go into effect. HB2 was supposed to become the law of Texas on September 1, and the ACS rule would have immediately shuttered all bu ... More >>

Planned Parenthood's New HB2-Proofed Clinic Opens in Southern Dallas

It's a nice clinic, it really is. With more space and amenities, it's a credit to the private donors who payed for it and continue to fuel Planned Parenthood's response to the Texas Legislature's crackdown on abortion. It's just unnecessary. The large janitor's closet, the backup generator, the loc ... More >>

Texas Abortion Clinics Await a Decision that Will Decide Whether They Stay Open Sept. 1

On September 1 the most stringent portion of House Bill 2, the anti-abortion legislation passed by the Texas Legislature last year, is scheduled to go into effect. Any healthcare clinic in the state that provides abortions will be required to be an ambulatory surgical center. If the rule takes effe ... More >>

Behind the Scenes at a Texas Pro-Life Meeting

Almost five minutes of audio, posted in full below, obtained by Naral Pro-Choice Texas and Progress Texas, shows the tactics Texas anti-abortion activists are using in order to exploit recent court decisions -- like McCullen v. Coakley, which outlawed buffer zones around health clinics that provide ... More >>

How Texas' New Abortion Restrictions Have Actually Impacted Access to the Procedure

The number of abortions being performed in Texas has dropped moderately, clinics offering abortions are vanishing rapidly and women seeking abortions must travel much farther to get an abortion, according to almost 18 months of data compiled by researchers looking at the effects of Texas' passage of ... More >>

Communist-Led Anti-Patriarchy Protesters Don't Give a Crap if Texas Feminists Are Offended By Its Abortion Rights Freedom Ride

In 2011, there were 44 abortion clinics in Texas. By September, providers expect that number to drop to somewhere around six. While big-name health organizations like Planned Parenthood are trying to open new clinics that comply with strict state laws or challenge lawmakers in court, a scrappy prote ... More >>

A Year After Texas' Abortion Law Was Signed, What's Changed, and What's Coming

One year ago yesterday, Governor Rick Perry signed into law one of the country's most restrictive abortion laws. It's been a little over a year since Wendy's Davis' landmark filibuster, and it would be another few months before the bill withstood legal strutiny in federal courts. But here we are non ... More >>

Planned Parenthood Will Open a New Dallas Abortion Clinic to Clear Texas' New Hurdles

Planned Parenthood plans to open a new clinic in southern Dallas that will meet the stringent requirements imposed on abortion providers by the state of Texas, ensuring that Dallas has at least one clinic that can perform abortions under the new rules. The regulations, which were passed in the Wend ... More >>

Stop Patriarchy Is Crashing Texas with Its Abortion Freedom Ride, and Local Feminists Are Pissed

Wendy Davis' 11th-hour filibuster in June 2013 didn't ultimately stop the Texas Legislature from passing some of the country's most sweeping abortion restrictions, nor did it stop abortion clinics across the state from shutting their doors when they couldn't meet the stringent new standards or obtai ... More >>

Abortion Doctors Say University General Revoked Their Privileges to Quell Protesters

The two Dallas abortion clinics that nearly saw their doors close under under the state's new regulations are remaining open thanks to a settlement with the local hospital that had tried to revoke their admitting privileges. But allegations made by the clinics suggest that it was an aggressive respo ... More >>

Obvious Child Director Gillian Robespierre Explains Her Abortion-Themed Romantic Comedy

For Texas Women, Access to Abortion Keeps Dwindling, with No Hope in Sight

Last year, Governor Rick Perry called the Texas Legislature to Austin for two special sessions, both focused on passing one of the country's most restrictive abortion laws. The new law, HB 2, put Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis on the map after an 11-hour filibuster. It also began to ... More >>

Denton-Based Bikers for Life is Fighting Abortion With Harleys, Because Why Not?

Mark Crutcher, the founder of Denton's Life Dynamics, is famous for using clever (i.e. underhanded) strategies in his fight to end abortion. But his new venture, which debuted this weekend at Dallas' March for Life, is quite direct. Dubbed Bikers for Life, the organization aims to use motorcycles t ... More >>

State Sen. John Carona on Texas Anti-Abortion Leader: "This Woman is Pure Evil."

This past legislative session, a schism emerged in Texas' pro-life movement. Suddenly, some of the state's staunchest abortion opponents, many who helped shepherd Texas' sweeping crackdown on the procedure into law, found themselves tarred as anti-life. The reason? They supported a bill to reform e ... More >>

Here Are Some Medical Procedures Texas Regulates Less Than Abortions

Placing tough new rules on abortion clinics is just common sense, according to common sense fanatic Rick Perry. He says that House Bill 2--the new law requiring all abortions to be performed in surgical centers, by a doctor with admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles -- will ensure "that ... More >>

The U.S. Supreme Court Upheld a Key Part of Texas' Abortion Law, but Not without Rancor

When the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and more than a dozen health care providers took Attorney General Greg Abbott to court in September to challenge Texas' new anti-abortion law, they weren't trying to tackle the entire law. Instead, they narrowed in on a few key provisions that were supposed to take ... More >>

In Race for Seat on Texas' Oil and Gas Regulator, a Candidate Campaigns Against Abortion

Wayne Christian is eying a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, the state agency charged with the twin tasks of regulating the oil and gas industry. So naturally, Christian is campaigning hard on his unwavering opposition to abortion. Christian, a former state representative from East Texas, tout ... More >>

Burleson Man Who Tried to Blow Up a Church Now Protesting Abortion at Local High Schools

In its first few weeks of existence, the Burleson chapter of Abolish Human Abortion focused its energies on the time-honored technique of standing outside abortion clinics holding disturbingly graphic signs. The results, as founder Jered Ragon recounts in a series of YouTube dispatches, were less th ... More >>

Texas' Abortion Law is Headed to the U.S. Supreme Court

The aftermath of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling last week reinstating the requirement that doctors performing abortions in Texas have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their clinic was swift and sweeping. By the next morning, a third of the state's abortion clinics had ... More >>

Texas' Abortion Restrictions Will Go Into Full Effect After All

Most of Texas' sweeping anti-abortion law has already gone into effect. The ban on the procedure after 20 weeks post-fertilization, the requirement that clinics meet the standards laid out for ambulatory surgical center, the mandatory reliance on outdated FDA guidelines on abortion-inducing drugs--a ... More >>

Federal Judge: HB 2 Places "Undue Burden" on Texas Women

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel never intended to wade into the abortion wars. He made that much clear in the preamble to his ruling, handed down today, in Planned Parenthood's lawsuit over Texas' new abortion restrictions: Today there is no issue that divides the people of this country more than ab ... More >>

In Court, Texas Says New Abortion Restrictions Needed to "Protect Fetal Life"

The stakes in the two-day trial over Planned Parenthood's challenge to Texas' new abortion restrictions, which kicked off yesterday in Austin, are rather low. Whatever decision U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel hands down will be appealed to the 5th Circuit, then the Supreme Court, leaving the law in c ... More >>

Texas' New Abortion-Clinic Rules Could Be Stricter Than Those For Many Surgery Centers

Unless Planned Parenthood's lawsuit gets in the way, Texas' new abortion restrictions will require all abortion providers to become ambulatory surgical centers by September 1, 2014 or close their doors. But state regulators seem to be even tougher on abortion clinics than for your typical ASC. Unti ... More >>

Has Your State Been Sued By Planned Parenthood Yet?

Any old state controlled by aging Republicans can pass laws to dramatically restrict access to abortion. It's what you do when your state faces poverty, drought and a ton of other pressing issues that you'd rather not deal with. But making the anti-abortion laws stick is the real challenge. Texas is ... More >>

Planned Parenthood Is Suing Texas Over New Abortion Restrictions

BREAKING: PP, @ACLU, & @ReproRights have filed a suit in federal court to stop #HB2 from taking effect in TX. #StandWithTXWomen— Cecile Richards (@CecileRichards) September 27, 2013 Long before Wendy Davis laced up her pink Mizunos and stepped onto the floor of the Texas Senate for her h ... More >>

Why Is The Dallas Morning News Letting Robert Jeffress Turn a Debate About War into a Debate About Abortion?

The Dallas Morning News has already made clear where it stands on the question of Syria. In an editorial last week, the paper decried the "egregious act of mass murder" currently taking place there and urged the the U.S. to launch a "series of cruise missile or drone strikes on Syrian air bases and ... More >>

Denton's Life Dynamics is on a Mission to End Abortion by Suing Clinics over Child Rape

Life Dynamics, the Denton-based pro-life group that long ago earned a permanent spot on Planned Parenthood's anti-choice hall of fame, has always prided itself on being a bit different from its allies in the abortion fight. It's less about standing outside of abortion clinics with photos of bloody f ... More >>

Travel Guide: Where to Take an Abortion Roadtrip After Texas' New Anti-Abortion Law Takes Effect

The most restrictive part of Texas' new. controversial abortion law isn't its ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy -- only 1 percent of abortions occur after this time anyway. It's the "ambulatory surgical center" regulation that requires all clinics that perform abortions to become ambulato ... More >>

Planned Parenthood Announces Plans to Close Three Texas Clinics, Blames the Legislature

It hasn't even been 24 hours since Governor Rick Perry signed House Bill 2, the infamous abortion clinic-killing bill, into law, and three Planned Parenthood clinics are already making plans to shut their doors. The Huffington Post reports that Planned Parenthood clinics in Bryan, Huntsville and Lu ... More >>

The 10 Dumbest Moments from the Texas Legislature's Abortion Debate

The abortion debate is a Gordian knot wrapped in a koan stuck in an inescapable quagmire. It's not, in other words, a matter that can be settled through dialogue, reasoned or otherwise, as the Texas Legislature has so amply proved over the past month. That hasn't stopped people from trying. In some ... More >>

Watch the Texas Senate Debate -- and Probably Pass -- Sweeping Anti-Abortion Bill

It all comes down to this. For real this time. The Senate is just about to begin final consideration of HB 2 which, in case you haven't been paying attention, would ban abortion after 20 weeks, require abortion clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers, and make doctors who p ... More >>

At City Hall Today, Lawmakers and Planned Parenthood Urged Dallas to "Stand With Texas Women"

The Texas House just passed sweeping abortion restrictions. Once they pass the senate, the procedure will be banned 20 weeks post-fertilization, and all but five abortion providers in the state will be forced to close thanks to a medically unnecessary requirement that they meet the standards of ambu ... More >>

The Tea Party Will Use "Gandhi-Style Tactics" to Battle Fascist Pro-Choice Mobsters

The narrative that's emerged on the right in the wake of the defeat of sweeping anti-abortion legislation this week isn't that Senator Wendy Davis jiu jitsued a victory with a Frank Capra-worthy filibuster. Rather, it's that the democratic process was hijacked by an unruly mob of out-of-state agitat ... More >>

The Daily Show Takes on Wendy Davis and the Texas Abortion Debate

There are many layers of absurdity that surround the abortion debate at the state Capitol over the past several days. There was state Representative Jodie Laubenberg's claim that rape kits clean out pregnancy and Republican senators' flimsy rationale for ending Wendy Davis' epic filibuster. There wa ... More >>

Senator Wendy Davis, With Help from a Lot of Pissed Off Texans, Kills Sweeping Abortion Bill

This wasn't supposed to happen. When Governor Rick Perry called a special legislative session and, later, tacked abortion onto the agenda, he was effectively declaring that the proposed restrictions, some of the toughest in the country, had enough support to become law. And he was right, in a way. C ... More >>

Hundreds of Texas Women Put Up an Epic, All-Night Fight Against Proposed Abortion Restrictions

The hearing of the Texas House State Affairs Committee meeting kicked off at 1 p.m. Thursday with a mere two items on the agenda: a pair of bills by Representative Jodie Laubenberg, a Republican from Parker with the modest aim of ending legal abortion in the Texas, or coming as close to that as poss ... More >>

The State Senate Approved a Massive Anti-Abortion Bill

And there it is: Late last night, the Senate approved SB 5, a massive set of abortion restrictions that combine all the worst parts of most every anti-abortion bill filed in the regular session of the legislature. Well, all the worst parts, with one notable exception: The bill's author, Republican S ... More >>

Texas Congressman: Masturbating Fetuses Are Proof That Fetal Pain Is Real

It's always reassuring to know that no matter how stupid things get in the state legislature, things are just as dumb, if not more so, in Congress. Perhaps "reassuring" is the wrong word. In either case, in order to fully grasp the import of this story, you should know that U.S. Congressman Michael ... More >>

Texas GOP's Sophisticated Plan to Pass Special Session Anti-Abortion Bills: Cheating

Remember how Governor Rick Perry called a special session to talk about redistricting? And remember how sophisticated political observers (i.e. everyone with eyes and a functioning brain) predicted that the special session would soon turn into a huge, nasty dogfight about abortion? Yeah, that's happ ... More >>

All Those Anti-Abortion Bills that Failed Resurface in Legislature's Special Session

This session in the Texas Legislature was sort of stupid, but then again, they usually are. Although they did manage to pass a budget, their main piece of business each session, your esteemed lawmakers also spent time approving such vital pieces of legislation as the "Merry Christmas Bill" . They al ... More >>

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.