By: John Hawkins, President and CEO, THA
There is nothing more central to the mission of a hospital than saving lives. If you want our Texas Hospital Association to throw our support behind a bill, the quickest route to opening that discussion is to tell us that the bill will save lives and then show us how.
Saving lives is the very reason THA is supporting one of the most consequential – and highest-profile – bills of this state legislative session. Dubbed the Life of the Mother Act, House Bill 44 by Rep. Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth) and its companion, Senate Bill 31 by Sen. Bryan Hughes (R-Mineola), would bring clarity to the medical emergency exceptions to Texas’ abortion ban – allowing physicians full authority to respond quickly to an emergent event and save a mother’s life.
We’ve joined with the Texas Medical Association to back this important bill because pregnant mothers – and the medical professionals who treat them – depend on the vital clarifications in the Life of the Mother Act. Shortly after the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, which reversed Roe v. Wade, Texas’ trigger-law abortion ban went into effect. Unfortunately, no less than three other state abortion laws also were in effect at the same time, with conflicting definitions and other unresolved loose legal ends.
It was understood that our state’s abortion ban contained an exception to save the life of the mother or protect her major bodily functions. But what wasn’t understood was exactly where the parameters of that exception were. For physicians practicing in our state’s medical facilities, this led to uncertainty about when the law would allow them to intervene. When you’re talking about life or death – or, in the case of a physician acting in an emergency, meeting the standard of care vs. potential criminal or regulatory liability – that uncertainty is an unsustainable disservice to our entire state.
As of early April, discussion of this legislation is ongoing. But as it stands at this writing, the Life of the Mother Act would help to put these questions to rest. Its key provisions include:
- Making clear that the state – not the physician – carries the burden of proof in criminal prosecutions tied to the medical emergency exception in our law.
- Clarifying the medical emergency exception to align with what our state Supreme Court has already confirmed: that a mother’s death does not need to be imminent for a physician to legally terminate a pregnancy.
- Aligning the definition of “medical emergency” in our other abortion laws with the modified definition that removes the “life-threatening” language.
- Confirming that physicians treating ectopic pregnancies are always exercising reasonable medical judgment and also clarifying the state’s very definition of “ectopic pregnancy.”
Physicians overseeing pregnancies and the delivery of a child need to be able to act in these tragic emergency situations, and to do so without worrying about what comes next. Although any bill on abortion policy is liable to become a political football, we at THA are stressing that the Life of the Mother Act is plainly not about politics. Simply put, it’s a law-clarifying, lifesaving bill – nothing more, nothing less. Because of this bill, Texas physicians will know their legal latitude, and Texas mothers in danger will survive – and, in many cases, get another chance to become a mother that they might not otherwise have had.
If you love our state, we hope you’ll join us in supporting its passage.