AUSTIN, Texas — After ushering in a near-total abortion ban last year, the state’s GOP leaders are treading carefully on the eve of the upcoming legislative session and not openly saying how they will handle the hot-button issue.
They face some division within their party about how to proceed.
A handful of Republicans have signaled an openness to soften the law by adding exemptions for rape and incest.
But others say they want to toughen the state’s laws by punishing companies that help employees get abortions out of state and overriding district attorneys who refuse to bring abortion-related criminal charges. They’re being egged on by the state’s most prominent anti-abortion groups, including Texas Right to Life.
“Simply because abortion is illegal in statute doesn’t mean it’s actually being followed everywhere in the state,” said Texas Right to Life president John Seago. “We want to pass several bills that will address some of the new lawless trends that we have seen in the last 18 months.”
Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan did not answer questions about what approach they favor.
The Legislature reconvenes on Tuesday.
So far, few Republicans have filed legislation related to abortion, making it difficult to gauge which policies will gain traction. Lawmakers can put forward proposals until early March.
Democrats have already submitted bills to pull back the ban and put reproductive rights before Texas voters through a constitutional amendment, though the proposals are unlikely to pass the GOP-dominated Legislature.
Rep. Donna Howard, an Austin Democrat who chairs the Texas Women’s Health Caucus, said the focus is “going to be on minimizing the harm done to Texas women and families.”
“Knowing that the ban is not going to be lifted, how do we make sure that women still have access to the health care they need and that those who assist are not penalized?” she said.
Texas is one of 13 states that cut off women’s access to abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade last summer. New Mexico is the only neighboring state that still allows the procedure, and according to the Guttmacher Institute, the average driving distance from Texas to an abortion clinic is now more than 500 miles one way.
Under the state’s ban, doctors in Texas can face life behind bars and six-figure fines for performing illegal abortions. Another law, known as Senate Bill 8, empowers regular citizens to sue doctors or anyone else who “aids or abets” an abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.
The procedure is only allowed to save the life of the pregnant person, although the narrow exemption has sparked confusion among physicians and led some to delay ending dangerous pregnancies, at a risk to the women’s health.
In August, providers reported performing three abortions statewide, all of them in hospitals and in response to medical emergencies, according to the most recently available data published by the state’s health and human services commission.
Since the state’s restrictive laws took effect, researchers found that demand for abortion pills by mail surged in Texas and other states with similar bans.
The legislative session will test Republicans’ resolve on an issue for which recent public polling shows a majority of Texans believe they’ve gone too far.
In a statement last week, former President Donald Trump pinned the party’s underwhelming midterm performance on its hardline abortion stance, saying Republicans who insisted on no exceptions cost the party votes.
But Trump faced pushback from Phelan, who said on Twitter that the former president’s hand-picked candidates were to blame.
“May 2023-24 bring the GOP new leadership PROUD to protect the unborn,” said Phelan, R-Beaumont.
Cypress Rep. Tom Oliverson, interim GOP House caucus chair, said the fact that Republicans maintained control of state government in the November elections, when Democrats made the state’s abortion ban a central line of attack, shows that voters feel they’re on the right track.
“I can tell you confidently from my community’s perspective,” he said, “that the overwhelming majority of them are very OK with the law as written.”
Elizabeth Simas, an associate professor of political science at the University of Houston, said the abortion bans are so new that not many voters may have felt their effects yet. As the stories become more common of pregnant women not being able to get care or to have a choice in their care, pushback may grow, she said.
“We have seen in other states that there obviously is a tipping point to where people are going to respond and react,” Simas said. “They haven’t quite found that yet in Texas. I don’t know if they’re going to roll the dice and risk finding that in this session.”
In the months before the midterm elections, a handful of Republicans showed a willingness to expand the law’s exemptions to include cases of rape and incest. But none has filed legislation to make such a change. The most prominent among them — Sens. Robert Nichols of Jacksonville and Joan Huffman of Houston — did not respond to a request for comment.
In recent television interviews, Patrick suggested the idea of adding more exemptions lacks broad support among Senate Republicans. Last fall, Phelan told The Texas Tribune that the House might revise the abortion ban, but he did not know how the chamber would vote on adding more exemptions.
The state’s most prominent anti-abortion groups — Texas Right to Life and Texas Alliance for Life — are firmly against rolling back any part of the abortion ban, their leaders told The Dallas Morning News. Instead, the groups are supporting a variety of proposals to tighten enforcement.
Rep. Candy Noble, R-Lucas, has filed legislation to prohibit state and local governments from providing any logistical support to assist women in getting an abortion, including child care, lodging or travel. Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, filed a bill to block businesses from receiving tax subsidies if they help employees in leaving the state to get abortions.
Neither bill has attracted co-sponsors.
Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, said he is working on legislation to get around district attorneys who will not prosecute violations of the abortion ban. Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot is one of a handful who have said they will refrain from prosecuting anyone who seeks, provides or supports an elective abortion.
