On Jan. 15, the State Board of Health voted to approve a set of controversial final rules related to state regulation of abortion providers, stemming from the state’s newly enacted Woman’s Right to Know Act (HB 15), the “informed consent” law and brainchild of Rep. Frank Corte, R-San Antonio. The most visible result is a 20-page Texas Department of Health pamphlet outlining, among other things, fetal development and the various risks associated with abortion — many of them specious, including the assertion of a causal link between abortion and an increased risk for contracting breast cancer. The law also directed the SBOH to adopt additional regulations, but several provisions go far beyond the statutory requirements, according to supporters of reproductive rights.
Among the controversial rules is a requirement that all women seeking an abortion must provide proof of identification, a copy of which must be retained in the clinic’s files; that each woman be offered a copy of the Woman’s Right to Know pamphlet and accompanying “resource guide”; and that women initial next to each item on a lengthy “informed consent checklist.” “We’ve testified against these things ad nauseam,” said Sarah Wheat, public affairs director for the Texas Abortion Rights Action League. Various national abortion rights groups are reviewing the rules, she said, and legal action is possible.
Peggy Romberg, head of the Women’s Health and Family Planning Association of Texas, says that in approving the rules, the SBOH ignored the majority of public comments opposing them. Under Texas’ open-records laws, Romberg obtained a breakdown of the comments received by the Texas Department of Health both for and against the controversial provisions. In total, she said in a press release, TDH got 2,203 public comments opposing the regulations and just 129 in favor. Yet the SBOH passed unpopular rules that will increase the cost of reproductive health care, threaten individual privacy, and “promote guilt in women already in crisis,” Romberg said. “Clearly [the SBOH has] bowed to political pressure rather than listen to the organized medical community, physicians, nurses, social workers, and other professionals,” who’ve voiced concerns about the new law, she said. “How can we continue to trust [the board] to make sound public health policies and decisions?”
This article appears in January 23 • 2004.