My name is Dr. Joe Pojman. I am the Executive Director of Texas Alliance for Life. We support House Bill 44.
We are especially excited about the Continuing Medical Education and Continuing Legal Education pieces of HB 44.
In 2021, the Legislature passed the Human Life Protection Act, which went into effect in August 2022, a few weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs. That law completely protects unborn babies from elective abortion throughout pregnancy. Reported elective abortions have plummeted from thousands per month to zero.
However, the law has an exception to allow doctors to perform medically-necessary abortions in rare and tragic cases when a pregnancy endangers a woman’s life or major body function.
The Texas Supreme Court has upheld that exception as constitutional and clear for doctors, in two cases: In Re Texas and Texas v. Zurawski. The Texas Medical Board has promulgated rules explaining the exception to physicians.
According to data from the Health and Human Services Commission, doctors have reported performing 151 abortions under the medical necessity exception, since Dobbs through November 2024, about 60 per year, virtually all in hospitals.
No doctor has been prosecuted, sued, or sanctioned for any of those 151 abortions. No woman has lost her life for lack of an exception.
From the HHSC data, we can see that doctors have performed abortions in hospitals to save women’s lives or major bodily function before Dobbs, and doctors are performing abortions to save women’s lives or major bodily function after Dobbs, at comparable rates. (After accounting for abortions performed for cases of fatal diagnosis of the unborn child, which were allowed before September 2021, there is likely no substantial difference.)
Hospital attorneys and doctors need to know this so doctor can treat their patients with 100% confidence and so that pregnant women can receive the care they deserve.
Thank you.