By: Cassy Fiano-Chesser

The Texas Alliance for Life celebrated as well. “We are ecstatic that the Texas Supreme Court has allowed legal protections from elective abortions for unborn babies to continue while acknowledging that doctors can perform abortions to save women’s lives,” Amy O’Donnell, Texas Alliance for Life’s Communications Director, said in an e-mailed press release. “The law can continue to save babies’ lives and, in rare and tragic cases, save women’s lives, just as the Legislature intended.”

By: Iris Dimmick and Andrea Drusch

Whyte, Bexar County Precinct 3 Commissioner Grant Moody, and a staff member from U.S. Congressman Tony Gonzales’ office stood with representatives from Texas Alliance for Life after the meeting ended to voice their opposition.

Whyte, who abstained on last year’s city budget vote because of the Reproductive Justice Fund, took a firm stand during the city council discussion.

“Depending on the comments of my fellow council members, we have an opportunity to avoid what I believe would be a really dark, dark day in the history of the city of San Antonio later this fall,” he said. “And that would be if we vote to approve any contract that uses public dollars to promote abortion services.”

In a statement signed by the abortion funds Sueños Sin Fronteras, Buckle Bunnies Fund, Lilith Fund, AVOW, and Jane’s Due Process, they called on the city council to move quickly to get funding out the door to support reproductive health.

By: Amy O'Donnell

O’Donnell, at the meeting of the Texas Medical Board. The Board will consider promulgating guidance to physicians treating women with pregnancies that risk the loss of a woman’s life or a major bodily function. The statement by Ms. O’Donnell emphasizes that Texas’ abortion laws have a medical-necessity exception to allow physicians to perform abortions in such rare and tragic cases. During the first 16 months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, doctors have performed 71 abortions under the medical-necessity exception, according to data from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, with no liability for the physicians.

By: Nick Harper

A U.S. study released last month estimates that 64,000 women and girls became pregnant from rape in states that have implemented abortion bans. The research has reignited the debate about a women’s right to choose. But anti-abortion groups in one of the most restrictive states say the data presented in the study is flawed.