* * * LEGISLATIVE ALERT 04/21/2025 * * *
Urge Your State Representative to Oppose HB 2197 to Criminalize Abortion for Women, Including the Death Penalty
The Texas Legislature is meeting at the Capitol in Austin through June 2. Please immediately urge your Texas state representative to oppose HB 2197, a bill that would criminalize abortion for women, including the possibility of the death penalty.
Texas has never criminalized abortion for women, including before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. There are several reasons why doing so now would be a terrible idea. For example, women with unplanned pregnancies undecided about abortion deserve information about compassionate alternatives offered at hundreds of pregnancy centers, maternity homes, adoption centers, and church-based ministries across Texas. The threat of prison time and the death penalty will keep them from seeking help for fear of prosecution. The background information below gives more reasons to oppose this bill.
Please contact your representative immediately. HB 2197 will be considered by the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence on Tuesday, April 22.
Find Your State Representative Here.
SAMPLE MESSAGES — Use your own words.
PHONE — (You may leave a message after business hours.)
Hello, my name is (name). I live at (address) Please ask Rep. __________ to oppose HB 2197 to criminalize abortion for women, including the death penalty. Thank you.
EMAIL — first.last@house.texas.gov
The Honorable (Representative Name)
Dear Rep. ___________:
I urge you to oppose HB 2197 to criminalize abortion for women, including the death penalty.
Thank you.
Your name & address
Let us know that you have made your contacts.
Send an email with any comments to info@texasallianceforlife.org.
Background
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- Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has this to say about this issue: “We shouldn’t punish women. Of course not. . . . That’s ridiculous.” (See Inside Texas Politics, 1/19/25.)
- No further criminalization of abortion is necessary. Texas law already completely protects unborn children from elective abortion beginning at conception from chemical and surgical abortion. The Human Life Protection Act, H&S Chap 170A, makes killing an unborn child a first-degree felony offense, with an exception when the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life or health. Providing abortion inducing drugs, including mifepristone, a common drug used for illegal abortions, is the same offense. Penalties include 99 years in prison, a minimum $100,000 lawsuit by the Texas Attorney General, and mandatory loss of medical license.
- Women with unplanned pregnancies deserve information about the vast resources Texas offers for alternatives to abortion — both public through the Thriving Texas Families program and numerous private agencies and churches. They do not deserve the threat of jail time or the death penalty.
- Undecided or ambivalent women with unplanned pregnancies will be less likely to seek help at a pregnancy center because of the possibility of prosecution. They will know that a visit to a pregnancy center will leave evidence of a possible abortion that could lead to a future arrest and conviction.
- Before Roe v. Wade blocked enforcement of Texas’ abortion law, which was passed in 1854, no woman was ever successfully prosecuted in Texas or in any other state. See Prosecuting Women for Abortion: A Reality Check by Paul Benjamin Linton, Texas Alliance for Life’s special counsel. We do not believe Texas should begin prosecuting women now.
- Prosecuting an abortion provider will be much more difficult if the woman can be prosecuted because she will likely be unwilling to testify against the provider.
- This excellent law review article by Texas Alliance for Life’s general counsel, Christopher Maska, gives an in-depth analysis of the flaws of this bill: The Abolitionists Are Wrong: Equal Protection Does Not Mean a Mother Who Gets an Abortion Has Committed a Capital Crime.
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