The latest Induced Termination of Pregnancy (ITOP) report from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), released on February 3, 2025, reaffirms that Texas’ pro-life laws are achieving their intended goal — protecting both women’s and unborn babies’ lives.

The report contrasts sharply with false claims made by Dr. Austin Dennard, a Dallas-based OB/GYN who criticized Governor Abbott in a recorded message played after his State of the State address Sunday evening. In the video she erroneously stated that “The state of Texas . . . every day is failing women like me. Some have lost their lives to preventable complications as a result of this negligence.”

This is simply untrue.

LifeNews is on GETTR. Please follow us for the latest pro-life news

During the first 27 months since the Supreme Court’s landmark Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Texas doctors have reported performing 135 abortions under the medical necessity exception to save women’s lives or health through September 2024 — an average of five per month — with reported elective abortions dropping to zero.

“These numbers make it absolutely clear that Texas’ pro-life laws are protecting women and unborn babies in our state,” said Amy O’Donnell, Communications Director for Texas Alliance for Life. “No doctor has been prosecuted, sued, or sanctioned for providing an abortion to save a woman’s life. No woman has lost her life for lack of an exception in the law. Misinformation suggesting otherwise spreads unnecessary fear among pregnant women and misleads the public about what our laws actually say.”

Texas continues to provide robust resources to support women and families. In its current budget, the state has allocated $165 million to the Alternatives to Abortion program and $400 million to Women’s Health Services. Thanks to recent legislative action, Medicaid covers more than half of all births in Texas and includes 12 months of postpartum care for mothers. Texas Alliance for Life remains steadfast in defending these pro-life laws and advocating for policies that protect women and their unborn children while supporting families across the state.

Background:

• Texas pro-life laws explicitly allow doctors to perform abortions when a mother’s life or health is at risk from the pregnancy, as is evident in the text of the law and explained by the Texas Supreme Court and the Texas Medical Board:

• Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs decision, Texas’ Human Life Protection Act (HB 1280) went into effect, protecting the lives of unborn children from abortion beginning at conception. That law has an exception for medically necessary abortions when, in the “reasonable medical judgment” of the physician, the pregnancy causes “a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that places the female at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless the abortion is performed or induced.”

• On May 31, 2024, the Texas Supreme Court, in Texas v. Zurawski, determined that the exception in the Texas Human Life Protection Act is both constitutional and clear. Physicians may use “reasonable medical judgment” to determine whether a pregnancy requires a medically necessary abortion. In the unanimous decision, the Court wrote:

A physician who tells a patient, “Your life is threatened by a complication that has arisen during your pregnancy, and you may die, or there is a serious risk you will suffer substantial physical impairment unless an abortion is performed,” and in the same breath states “but the law won’t allow me to provide an abortion in these circumstances” is simply wrong in that legal assessment.

• In June 2024, the Texas Medical Board, which licenses and regulates physicians, addressed the life-of-the-mother medical exception in rules to provide guidance for physicians. The rules explained that, under Texas law, the threat to the mother’s life or health does not have to be imminent, a point which Texas Alliance for Life advocated for in the rule-making process as a stakeholder.

• Texas law’s definition of abortion explicitly allows doctors to treat women for an ectopic pregnancy or a miscarriage (spontaneous abortion):

An act is not an abortion if the act is done with the intent to:

(A) save the life or preserve the health of an unborn child;
(B) remove a dead, unborn child whose death was caused by spontaneous abortion; or
(C) remove an ectopic pregnancy.

The post Texas Abortions Drop to 0, Potentially Saving Thousands of Babies Per Month appeared first on LifeNews.com.