Legislature Restricts Judicial Bypass For Minors Seeking Abortions

Republican lawmakers limit a legal process that allowed some minors to obtain abortions without their parents’ permission. In Texas, a person under the age of 18 cannot access a legal abortion without the consent of a parent or legal guardian.

The vast majority of teens who seek abortion care in Texas do so with the knowledge and consent of their parents. A small number — between 200 and 300 per year — that parental permission is not available. Under Texas current law, when an orphaned, abused, abandoned, or neglected teen doesn't have a parent they could turn to for consent, they can go to court to get judicial bypass authorization for an abortion from a judge. The process allowed a minor to obtain legal abortion care if a judge failed to rule on their bypass application, and allowed minors who live in small or rural counties to maintain some confidentiality by avoiding filing petitions in their home counties, where they might be recognized at the courthouse.

House Bill 3994, passed by Republican party line votes in both legislative chambers, drastically restricts this rarely used, judicial bypass process. Judicial bypass a crucial safety net that has worked well to protect the interests of Texas’ most vulnerable teens for the last 15 years.   Described by legal experts as “rife with constitutional problems,” HB3994 is designed to put this process out of reach of teens in need and further endanger the lives of teens living in desperate circumstances.

Texas House Republicans passed HB3994 on a 102-43 party line vote, on the last Friday of the session passed, after  Senate Republicans had passed the bill on a 21-10 party line vote. 

The bill restricts the judicial bypass process by requiring more proof that a minor is at risk for abuse by their parents, limiting the venues where a minor can seek judicial bypass and extending the time period judges have to rule on a judicial bypass request. As passed, HB 3994:

• limits the location and type of court in which a minor can seek an abortion
• forces the minor to reveal her home address and telephone number to a judge
• prevents the minor from removing her application for a judicial bypass after she has filed it with the court
• mandates that a physician who provides abortion care to a minor who says they have been sexually assaulted or abused report that sexual assault, and the identity of the suspected abuser, to law enforcement regardless of whether the minor wants to report their assault or feels it is safe to do so
• mandates that a judge who hears a judicial bypass case in which a minor says they are being abused must report that abuse to law enforcement, along with the identity of the suspected abuser, regardless of whether the minor wants to report their abuse or feels it is safe to do so
• gives a judge five business days, rather than two days, before they must rule on the judicial bypass application
• presumes that if a judge does not rule on the judicial bypass, that permission for the minor’s abortion is denied

Identification Documents Required

A broad provision of HB 3994 requires doctors to ask every woman who enters an abortion clinic for an ID to verify that she is not under 18. The list of approved documents includes driver’s licenses issued by Texas or another state and passports, among others. If a patient doesn’t have an approved ID, her doctor must give her instructions on where to get one. If she can’t obtain ID, for financial reasons or because she does not have her official state stamped birth certificate, for example, the doctor can still perform the abortion, but must report to the state that the procedure was performed without age verification.

Originally, HB3994 would have required all doctors to require pregnant woman seeking an abortion present a “valid government record of identification” to prove she was 18 or older before scheduling the procedure. The bill was amended to require physicians to use “due diligence” to determine a woman’s identity and age, before scheduling the procedure.

That additional reporting requirement could expose providers to additional liability, abortion rights leaders argue, and deter doctors from performing the procedure at all. Elizabeth Nash, a policy analyst with the Guttmacher Institute, said Oklahoma is the only other state with an age verification requirement for abortion. Advocates warn that the bill’s ID provision will most likely hurt poor women and immigrants.

Republican Lawmakers Continue Efforts To Kill Planned Parenthood

Four years after making deep budget cuts specifically targeted to kill Planned Parenthood, and two years after imposing stringent abortion restrictions, also targeted to kill Planned Parenthood, Republicans continued efforts of past legislative sessions to cut Planned Parenthood out of receiving state health care dollars for breast and cervical cancer screenings.

Four years ago, Republicans who controlled the 2011 82nd Legislature made deep cuts to women’s health funding in that year's budget bill. Those cuts resulted in thousands of women losing preventative and contraceptive services and the closure of dozens of clinics.  In the 2011 Texas legislative session, Republican lawmakers blocked funding for the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics, mandating that the organizations in the Texas’ Women’s Health Program shouldn’t receive federal funds because they are “affiliated” with an abortion provider.  Despite the fact that abortion services contribute to just 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s nationwide health services, and federal funding isn’t used to finance that small percentage, Texas slashed the Women’s Health Program’s funds by 90 percent.

In March 2012, the federal government cut off funds to Texas’ Women’s Health Program because the state chose to exclude abortion providers from the program in violation of federal law. Ousting Planned Parenthood from the joint state-federal Medicaid Women’s Health Program cost the state a 9 to 1 dollar match from the federal government. But even without federal funds, which made up 90 percent of the funding, then Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) issued directives for the state to fund the Women’s Health Program on its own.

Lacking federal funding, Perry directed the executive commissioner of the state’s Health and Human Services department to cut another $40.1 million in department services. The $40.1 million spending reduction piled on top of the $73 million 2011 82nd Legislature lawmakers had already stripped from the state’s family planning services budget. Even before Texas decided to ban Planned Parenthood from the Women’s Health Program, women’s clinics around the state were already being forced to greatly reduce services or shut their doors entirely.

The consequences of those deep cuts extended far beyond Republican budget cutting efforts directed toward killing Planned Parenthood itself.  In the fall of 2012, the Texas Observer noted the consequences of those deep cuts included clinics in rural areas being forced to suspend health care services they had provided for low-income women, many of whom can’t otherwise afford contraceptives, pregnancy tests, pap smears, or screening for sexually transmitted diseases:

In time since deep cuts to family planning funding took effect, the impact has become apparent. An Observer review of state records has found that 146 clinics have lost state funds, clumped mainly in the Panhandle, Central Texas and on the border with Mexico. More than 60 of those clinics have closed their doors forever. The number of organizations that help poor women plan pregnancy has shrunk by almost half. As in San Saba, low-income women in many areas of Texas now face a long drive, or worse, lack of access to birth control and health screenings.

In fact, of the more than 60 clinics that have closed across Texas, only 12 were run by Planned Parenthood. Dozens of other clinics unconnected to Planned Parenthood nonetheless lost state funds and have closed, leaving low-income women in wide swaths of the state without access to contraception. […]

Indeed, the bipartisan Legislative Budget Board estimated that last year’s cuts would lead to more than 250,000 women losing services and 20,000 additional births covered by Medicaid. When The Texas Observer asked providers what they thought about the cuts, several mentioned the same phrase. They said in hoping to punish Planned Parenthood, politicians had gone too far, with devastating consequences for women’s health. Lawmakers, they said, had thrown the “baby out with the bath water.”

Among the health clinics that managed to remain open, many have been forced to contract their geographic range, limiting services to a smaller population of Texas women. Regardless of affiliation to Planned Parenthood, limiting health clinics’ ability to provide critical health services to low-income women does not have the intended consequence of targeting just Planned Parenthood. Rather, drastic cuts to the Women’s Health Program are preventing struggling women from getting access to the care they need.

Republicans who controlled the 2013 83rd Legislature passed the most restrictive abortion law in recent history, which forced half the state’s abortion clinics to close. The measure, passed in a special summer legislative session, bans abortions past 20 weeks of gestation, mandates abortion clinics become ambulatory surgical centers, tightens usage guidelines for the drug RU486 and requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic at which they're providing such services. (See Texas Tribune June 9, 2015 stories: 5th Circuit Appeals Court Upholds Texas' Abortion Restrictions, Remaining Abortion Clinic Locations, Texas Abortion Law Up For Supreme Court Review, and UPDATED June 29, 2015 - Supreme Court Stays Texas Abortion Clinic Law Ruling From 5th Circuit.)

Even after the four year long effort to kill Planned Parenthood, some Planned Parenthood affiliates continued to receive funding from the Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program, which is primarily funded by federal money. In fiscal year 2014, funding for the program included $7.8 million in federal funds and $2.4 million in state funds. The legislative agenda for the 2015 84th Legislature was to effectively block Planned Parenthood from receiving those program dollars.

Republicans were successful in edging Planned Parenthood out of receiving Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program funds, which provides cancer screenings for uninsured women. That was the last stream of federal/state funding any Planned Parenthood clinics received, even though the majority of program funding was from federal dollars. House and Senate SB1 budget writers approved a provision in joint committee action to make it more difficult for Planned Parenthood to qualify to share Breast and Cervical Cancer Services program funding.

More background: Women in Texas Losing Options for Health Care

Republicans Double State Funding For Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Republicans who controlled the 2015 84th Texas Legislature doubled state funding for the Alternatives to Abortion program, which primarily funds Crisis Pregnancy Centers. Many charge the unregulated and unlicensed Crisis Pregnancy Centers are dangerously manipulative and disseminate bad information to women at an emotionally vulnerable time. To offset Alternatives to Abortion program increased funding, Republicans cut funding to other health care programs, leaving Texas women without access to cancer screenings, birth control, HIV tests, and other preventive care.

The House base budget, originally introduced in mid-January, includes about $5.1 million per year, a $1 million increase from the previous budget cycle, to the program. The House Appropriations Committee in March approved a budget rider to add an additional $4 million per year to the Alternatives to Abortion program. The “increasing funds to pregnancy centers and early childhood care” rider, proposed by state Rep. Greg Bonnen (R-Friendswood), increases state Alternatives to Abortion program funding to more than $9 million per year.

The nonprofit Texas Pregnancy Care Network contracts with the state to distribute funding through the Alternatives to Abortion program to 61 subcontractors, including crisis pregnancy centers, maternity homes and adoption agencies. The network claims to “help women in crisis pregnancies via free and compassionate, practical and life-affirming services,” but many facilities do not provide medical care, are virtually unregulated by the state and have been found by various investigations to offer inaccurate information designed to dissuade women from having an abortion.

Many charge unregulated and unlicensed Alternatives to Abortion facilities are dangerously manipulative. According to a 2012 Texas Observer investigation, Crisis Pregnancy Centers deliver few, if any, real health services to women, while spending more per client than family planning providers. An investigation into Crisis Pregnancy Centers by NARAL Pro-Choice Texas found these faux medical clinics use deceptive tactics, medical misinformation, and flat out lies to dissuade people with unintended pregnancies from accessing abortion services.