AUSTIN — The Senate late Tuesday approved sweeping new abortion restrictions, though the bill’s author abandoned a provision that would ban the procedure after 20 weeks.
The bill was passed 20-10 by the chamber’s majority Republicans after several hours of back-room negotiations and a heated debate between author Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, and Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth. Hegar maintained that the legislation’s primary purpose is to raise the standard of care for the procedure.
“At this point this committee substitute is the most practical and logical way for us to raise the standard of care and protect innocent life and move something to the House to give them an opportunity to weigh in on this very heavy and weighty emotional issue,” Hegar said.
Davis disagreed, saying the measure was “not about making women safe; this is about political primaries and making sure you’re feeding the red meat for the political primaries,” she said.
The bill would require that all abortion facilities meet the minimum standards of ambulatory surgical centers, which would be an expense for 32 of the state’s 38 clinics that aren’t at that threshold.
The clinics that do operate at those standards are in major metropolitan areas, and the others would have until September 2014 to update their clinics.
“The practical effect will be to shut down the clinics,” said Sen. José Rodríguez, D-El Paso. “So doesn’t it have the practical effect of limiting access to care for women instead of improving it?”
Addressing the concerns of cost, Greenville Republican Sen. Bob Deuell, a family physician, said the abortion business is a lucrative industry that can afford the costs of updating centers to meet new standards.
“This is a bill that should pass this body 31-0,” Deuell said. “If you’re pro-choice you’re saying you want the abortions out of the alleys, the substandard clinics.”
It would also require that physicians administering the medication to terminate early pregnancies perform an exam before giving the first dose and follow up within 14 days of the third dose. An amendment by Deuell allows physicians to administer a lower dosage for the pill, updating the bill to current best-practices guidelines. Doctors would have to give the patient a 24-hour contact number for them or an associate and directions and numbers for the nearest hospital.
Time is winding down for the Legislature to approve bills on the agenda set by Gov. Rick Perry. Davis questioned why Perry decided to cram the bills into the last weeks of a special session when they failed to make it out of the Legislature in the 140-day regular session that ended last month.
With less than a week left before the special session must end, the House has yet to schedule the bills for a committee hearing and then a vote in the full House. If they are changed, differences with the Senate would have to be resolved. Jason Embry, a spokesman for House Speaker Joe Straus, said the chamber’s leaders still intend to move the measure.
Hegar’s initial provision was based on the assertion that a fetus may be able to feel pain at 20 weeks — a claim that has been disputed by medical groups such as the American Medical Association.
Hegar said he wanted to pull the provision for a variety of reasons. Houston Democratic Sen. John Whitmire questioned whether he was compromising for the sake of political expediency; Hegar said he was not.
Hegar’s 20-week provision is still alive in a stand-alone bill. Some questioned whether the bill is sufficiently different from an Arizona law struck down as unconstitutional last month by a federal appeals court.
Follow Claire Cardona on Twitter at @clairezcardona.
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