AUSTIN - Women gave passionate testimony Thursday before a Senate committee considering legislation to ban abortion at 20 weeks and impose other regulations including stricter standards for facilities that provide the procedure.
The Senate Health and Human Services Committee plans to vote Friday on the legislation, said its chair, Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound. Gov. Perry just this week added the issue of abortion regulation to the special-session agenda, which he controls.
Shelby Alexander was among witnesses who dressed in a style reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s. She said the era has been romanticized by the television show "Mad Men," but she didn't want to go back to time when women's access to health services and decision-making over their bodies was so restricted.
Pro and con
"These bills are very reflective of the backward policies of that era," said Alexander, 22, a recent graduate of St. Edwards University in Austin.
Carol Ann Preston of Carrollton, who supports the legislation, recounted hemorrhaging after an abortion in 1986. She said she was then 29, recently divorced, and threatened with the loss of her job and custody of her two young children when she found herself pregnant.
Preston said she remarried but was unable to conceive again, so "my husband also paid the price for my abortion."
"I am pro-life," she said, but women who choose abortion "have a right to good, quality medical care" that she said would be the result of higher standards.
Providers of medical care took opposing sides on the issue of standards.
"Shouldn't everyone's ultimate concern be the safety of the women who undergo this elective procedure?" asked Dr. Ingrid Skop, an obstetrician and gynecologist in San Antonio who supports the legislation.
Fears center will close
Amy Hagstrom-Miller, who opposes the legislation, runs an ambulatory surgical center in San Antonio, along with abortion clinics in San Antonio, McAllen, Beaumont, Austin and Fort Worth.
She said clinics would have to close rather than comply with costly requirements of meeting higher standards required of ambulatory surgical centers, such as full post-operative areas.
One of the measures before the committee, Senate Bill 5 by Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, combines several abortion regulation proposals.
It would ban abortion at 20 weeks after fertilization, with exceptions for conditions that would threaten the life of the woman or result in her irreversible, substantial physical impairment; and for profound, irreparable fetal abnormalities that would result in the child's death soon after birth.
The measure would require doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the site where the abortion was provided; require facilities to meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers; and establish stricter standards in law for administration of drugs that cause abortions.
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