Gov. Greg Abbott signs Senate Bill 4 targeting medical abortion drug providers
Late last week, the governor signed Senate Bill 4, a measure that outlaws the use of abortive medications after seven weeks of pregnancy. Previous law allowed medical practitioners to provide abortion-inducing pills to patients who were up to 10 weeks pregnant — as approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — according to Kevin Reynolds and Kate McGee of the Texas Tribune.
The new law, which goes into effect on Dec. 2, also bans such pills from being delivered “by courier, delivery, or mail service” to anyone residing in Texas. Under SB 4, those who “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly” violate the provisions of the bill would be committing a “state jail felony” and can be fined up to $10,000 and could also face between 180 days and two years in prison.
Medical abortion pills were among the remaining options for women seeking to terminate unwanted pregnancies in Texas following the passage of Senate Bill 8, which effectively bans abortions past six weeks of pregnancy, including in cases of rape and incest.
Early non-surgical, medication abortions, which were approved by the FDA in 2000, typically involve the combination of the two pills, mifepristone and misoprotol. The regimen is the most common method used for abortions and is effective more than 95 percent of the time, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an organization that researches reproductive rights.
In 2017, early medical abortions accounted for 60 percent of all abortions that happened in the first 10 weeks of gestation, an increase from 25 percent in 2014, the research group reports.
However, this might change after SB 4 goes into effect this fall.
