After a federal appellate court ruling that Texas can enact its abortion restriction, a possible loophole in the law may have women looking to their doctors for the procedure according to a recent article from the Texas Tribune.
The Lone Star State does not require physician offices to obtain abortion licenses if they perform fewer than 50 abortions per year.
Dr. Raymond Moss Hampton is an OB/GYN who chairs the Texas branch of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. He says, “History is going to repeat itself in my mind. They tried to prohibit alcohol, and that just led to an underground industry. The same thing is going to happen with abortion.”
Some observers think physician office abortions could be the next stop on the GOP lawmaker train, working to further limit the procedure.
Anti-abortion groups have not prioritized the issue at this time.
Emily Horne is a lobbyist for Texas Right to Life. She says she did not expect the number of abortions performed in physicians' offices to increase now that more clinics had closed. She doesn’t rule out pursuing legislation on it.
“A lot of the same safety provisions that the doctor is subject to are still in place,” Horne says. "I don’t think it’s as substantial of a loophole as it might seem.”
The licensing exemption is on state lawmakers’ radar. In 2004, former state Rep. Frank Corte, Jr. sent the Texas attorney general’s office a letter requesting an opinion on the scope of the state’s authority to regulate abortion among providers exempt from state licensing requirements.
In an opinion issued that year, Attorney General Greg Abbott, the current Republican gubernatorial candidate, wrote that the Texas health department’s interpretation of the state statute that exempts some abortion providers from licensing requirements was “reasonable because it does not leave patients unprotected.” He wrote that other licensing laws “provide for exempt facilities’ licensing and regulation and protect patients’ health and safety.”
