There’s been yet another dystopian development regarding abortion rights in Texas.
A Lone Star State legislator has introduced a bill that would ban websites and information providing reproductive health care options online. And the measure would make it a felony to raise funds for abortion care.
Abortion is already banned in Texas with no exceptions for rape or incest. Since Texas has acted as an incubator of devious and harmful legislation targeting abortion rights, unfortunately this proposal could be copycatted in other states.
Texas state Rep. Steve Toth filed HB 991 earlier this month, which would require internet service providers to block any website that provides information on how to obtain abortions or abortion medication. Websites for pro-choice organizations and abortion funds would all be banned, effectively barring accessible abortion information within the state. The bill is laughably called the “Women and Child Safety Act” even though eliminating all information about abortion and reproductive freedom in Texas will further endanger pregnant Texans with unwanted pregnancies.
The bill would permit citizens to bring civil lawsuits against internet service providers who do not block applicable websites. Of course, this takes a page from the infamous Texas SB 8, which financially incentivized private citizens to turn on those giving abortion care. That law allows private citizens to sue anyone who “aids and abets” an abortion, regardless of their connection to the pregnant person or health care provider. HB 991 would make it a felony for anyone who raises money for abortion care, with a particular focus on abortion funds. The bill calls on the state attorney general to investigate and charge abortion funds, using the RICO Act, a federal law that is meant to go after organized crime.
Texas is the second state to introduce legislation that would eliminate pro-choice websites statewide. Iowa tried to pass a similar bill last year. This follows a larger trend of anti-abortion legislators and advocates employing increasingly authoritarian attacks on free speech related to abortion. The First Amendment protects against government attempts to limit free speech, such as banning websites with abortion information.
Restricting information on how to obtain an abortion or abortion medication follows the game plan Christian nationalists have for abortion rights under the draconian Comstock Act, which barred sending “obscene, lewd or lascivious,” “immoral” or “indecent” publications or contraceptive or abortifacient devices through the mail in 1873. Anti-abortion legislators want to make the mailing of abortion medication, instruments or information materials illegal, and in Texas, they want to make it illegal to even access the information online. Ultimately, their end goal is for the complete abolition in the United States of abortion, including via censorship of any pertinent information.
Texas is under nationwide scrutiny for its dangerous total abortion ban, which ProPublica recently reported has led to multiple preventable deaths, including revelations last week of a third woman dying. Miscarriages are being left untreated in Texas and in other states with bans because health care providers are too afraid to administer routine treatment. As a consequence, women are dying or being put at risk of grave health outcomes, including unnecessary infections and hysterectomies.
Texas anti-abortion legislators also want to classify abortion medication as a controlled substance, following Louisiana’s marking of abortion pills as controlled substances last month. This proposal would make abortion medication that much harder to obtain, would increase the criminal penalties for abortion providers and, in keeping with anti-abortion authoritarianism, would allow the state to track patients and providers who utilize abortion medication.
Thankfully, Texas Democrats are currently filing bills to create new health exceptions to the state’s dangerous abortion ban, allowing doctors to administer emergency care when their patients are facing health risks. More than 100 Texas OB-GYNs penned a public letter to state policymakers urging them to reform the state’s abortion ban.
The Texas legislative session does not start till Jan. 14, so it is unclear whether the bill will gain any traction or if any other states will follow suit. The anti-abortion movement is almost entirely motivated by religious zealotry based on when some Christians believe ensoulment takes place, and is also predicated on the punitive anti-woman ideology of the bible.
“We urge states to safeguard reproductive freedom,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor, “and reject a model that kills more women.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 40,000 members and several chapters across the country, including more than 1,700 members in Texas and a chapter in Austin. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
Photo by Reed Naliboff on Unsplash
