Texas Senate committee advances trans sports ban and medical abortion roadblock amid COVID-19 surge

AUSTIN — With the Home unable to conduct enterprise with out a quorum and amid a spike in COVID-19 instances linked to the Delta variant, a Texas Senate committee moved ahead with hearings Sunday and superior two payments prioritized by Gov. Greg Abbott within the second particular session that started Saturday.

The Texas Home didn’t have a quorum Saturday due to Democrats nonetheless mentioned to be in Washington, D.C., lobbying for federal voting rights laws. Moreover, about 10 members had examined constructive for COVID-19. Solely 81 of the 150 Home members had been current on the Texas Capitol on Saturday.

On the Senate agenda Sunday afternoon had been two controversial points: a proposed ban on transgender college students taking part in UIL sports activities and laws that goals to restrict entry to abortion inducing treatment.

Senate Invoice 4 by Brownsville Democrat Eddie Lucio, Jr., would prohibit what some lawmakers have known as “mail-order abortions, a apply by which medication that induce abortion are despatched by mail to folks searching for to terminate a being pregnant.

Through the pandemic, a Food and Drug Administration policy change allowed folks searching for an abortion to obtain the treatment through mail with out an in-person physician’s workplace go to. Critics of the coverage change, which spurred the laws, say it creates a security concern for folks utilizing the treatment.

Though he mentioned he didn’t like that an abortion would nonetheless happen, Lucio mentioned the laws would stop issues that he believed may happen if the treatment had been administered with out the presence of the healthcare supplier.

“As all of you properly know, I’m a pro-life legislator who believes within the sanctity of life,” Lucio mentioned. “Nevertheless, this invoice is somewhat completely different … the invoice makes an attempt to ensure there’s not two deaths, as an alternative of 1.”

However Blake Rocap, a well being care legal professional with Texas-based abortion rights group Avow, mentioned throughout public testimony that the laws wouldn’t change the truth that beneath present Texas legislation folks searching for an abortion nonetheless are nonetheless topic to restrictions on abortion care, together with a sonogram lower than 24 hours earlier than the abortion takes place, which should happen in a health care provider’s workplace.

Even with that testimony, Lubbock GOP Sen. Charles Perry mentioned “We nonetheless have to move this invoice as a result of it reaffirms our dedication to girls’s well being.”

Through the listening to, Edgewood GOP Sen. Bob Corridor laid out two hypothetical conditions of potential abuse he believes may happen beneath the present setup: a member of the family ordering the treatment for a pregnant girl and slipping it to them unknowingly, or intercourse traffickers forcing the treatment on girls they abuse.

However Rocap mentioned he worries the invoice may diminish high quality of care, thereby hurting girls, as a result of it will successfully stop docs from offering medical abortion, which he says is secure, to sufferers who’re between 7 and 10 week pregnant. He additionally mentioned it may create a chilling impact on docs who present that kind of care as a result of they may very well be topic to a felony for a failure to report issues which might be unrelated to the abortion care in a future being pregnant.

“Should you had been a doctor in Texas and supplied abortion care, after which, 10 years later, your affected person was pregnant once more with a being pregnant they wished to hold to time period, and had a complication that was unrelated to the care, you can be indicted with a state jail felony for not reporting that complication,” Rocap defined. “That appears somewhat egregious to me, and I hope the committee would agree with that.”

Transgender youths

Additionally thought of Sunday was a invoice that may ban transgender youths from taking part in UIL sports activities. Below that laws, athletes may solely take part on groups in step with their organic intercourse.

Perry, who authored Senate Invoice 2, mentioned the intent of his invoice was to make sure cisgender Texas girls taking part in sports activities would be capable of have a good shot at success. A number of feminine figuring out athletes testified that they feared their achievements could be diminished by having to compete with transgender girls, who they argued are biologically stronger.

Through the common session of the Legislature, dozens of Texans registered to testify in opposition to an similar invoice. Their hours testimony mirrored the place that LGBTQ youths are harmed by fixed questioning of their id.

Nevertheless, the Sunday testimony on the invoice lasted solely about an hour and a half.

Previous to the listening to, Equality Texas, an LGBTQ rights group, introduced it will boycott the committee listening to. Throughout public testimony, two representatives of the group defined the notable absence of members of the LGBTQ group.

“Different witnesses extra certified than I’ll testify to the trauma these youngsters endure each time they’re requested to plead the federal government for his or her humanity at one in all these hearings,” mentioned Holt Lackey, chair of Equality Texas. “As a result of this committee already is aware of the place our members stand and it’s already demonstrated that it doesn’t care, we aren’t asking them to attend in the present day.”

Each payments superior Sunday, however it’s unclear when or in the event that they’ll be heard by the Home resulting from lack of quorum.

Related variations of each payments handed the Senate through the first referred to as particular session, however didn’t advance due to the quorum break.

“It feels sort of like groundhog day,” Perry mentioned earlier than laying out his invoice.

Nevertheless, this time round, the looming presence of COVID-19 was stronger than over the past session. A number of members of the Well being and Human Companies Committee donned masks, and senators famous that public testimony might have decreased resulting from concern of the virus.

Corridor mentioned throughout a committee listening to within the common session that he had not obtained a vaccine in years. Saturday, he was current at a Dallas protest against vaccine mandates.

Sen. César Blanco, D-El Paso, made a movement for the committee to undertake earlier public testimony for and in opposition to similar payments in earlier periods.

“We’re in a COVID surge,” he mentioned. “Of us are afraid and fairly frankly it was brief discover.”

Chair Lois Kolkhorst mentioned the movement was not so as.