Associations representing the OB/GYNs and hospitals of Texas say that a Texas bill mandating new restrictions on on doctors and clinics that provide abortions does nothing to improve women's health care and has no medical basis, but conservative media figures are ignoring that medical opinion to claim the bill is needed to protect the health of women seeking abortions.

A Texas bill that is being reintroduced in a July 1 special legislative session would mandate new regulations that would force all but five of the 47 clinics providing abortions in the state to close and require doctors who perform abortions to have admittance privileges at a local hospital. Texas Republicans argued that they introduced the bill not to restrict access to legal abortions, but to improve the safety of women obtaining them. On the June 30 edition of ABC's This Week, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan parroted these claims, saying “the bill does not specifically try to close abortion clinics, it says they have to meet certain medical standards in order to operate.”

But the Texas District of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has expressed opposition to the bill, which it says imposes requirements on doctors and facilities providing abortions “that are unnecessary and unsupported by scientific evidence” and have no “basis in public health or safety.” The organization's June 25 statement further stated:

The Texas District of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) opposes SB 5/HB 60 and other legislative proposals that are not based on sound science or that attempt to prescribe how physicians should care for their individual patients. As a District of the Nation's leading authority in women's health, our role is to ensure that policy proposals accurately reflect the best available medical knowledge.

SB 5/HB 60 will not enhance patient safety or improve the quality of care that women receive. This bill does not promote women's health, but erodes it by denying women in Texas the benefits of well-researched, safe, and proven protocols.

Texas-ACOG further states that the bill creates “over reacting requirements for abortion facilities” that “does not promote the public health objective it claims to enhance,” and calls the requirement that doctors who provide abortions have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles “unneccesary.”

Additionally, the Texas Hospital Association (THA) issued a statement about the hospital admittance requirement, arguing that it does nothing to improve women's health because emergency room physicians would be the ones to treat a woman who needs emergency care due to complications from an abortion. From the statement:

THA agrees that women should receive high-quality care and that physicians should be held accountable for acts that violate their license. However, a requirement that physicians who perform one particular outpatient procedure, abortion, be privileged at a hospital is not the appropriate way to accomplish these goals.

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Should a woman develop complications from an abortion or any other procedure performed outside the hospital and need emergency care, she should present to a hospital emergency department. Requiring that a doctor have privileges at a particular hospital does not guarantee that this physician will be at the hospital when the woman arrives. She will appropriately be treated by the physician staffing the emergency room when she presents there. If the emergency room physician needs to consult with the physician who performed the abortion, the treating physician can contact the doctor telephonically, which is often done in other emergency situations.

Image Credit: Whole Women's Health