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Abortion rights demonstrators rally at the Capitol in Austin, Texas, on Saturday May 14, 2022. Demonstrators are rallying from coast to coast in the face of an anticipated Supreme Court decision that could overturn women\u2019s right to an abortion. (Jay Janner\/Austin American-Statesman via AP)<\/p>\n
Jay Janner\/AP<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 On the fourth anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion, Samantha Casiano carried a picture of her daughter, Halo, with her to meetings on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n
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The photo showed Halo without a fully formed skull and brain, leading to her death four hours after she was born. Casiano\u2019s OB-GYN had told her 20 weeks into her pregnancy that the defect was \u201cincompatible with life,\u201d but while Casiano said she could see her doctor wanted to help her end the pregnancy, she also saw the physician\u2019s hands were tied by the life imprisonment Texas doctors can face for providing abortions under the state\u2019s laws.<\/p>\n
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\u201cShe had to choose between her life and mine,\u201d Casiano said.<\/p>\n
Casiano was one of several women who traveled to Washington last month with Free & Just, a national nonprofit formed after the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that upended abortion access across the country, to speak with federal lawmakers as part of their \u201cAbortion Stories on the Hill\u201d campaign. It was the second June in a row in which women, like Casiano, trekked with Free & Just to the Capitol to relive some of their worst moments in an effort to explain to lawmakers how abortion restrictions delayed their medical care or forced them to carry a nonviable baby to term \u2014 an experience Casiano described as watching her daughter \u201csuffocate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was more prepared this time,\u201d Casiano said, comparing her first visit to Washington, in 2025, to a practice run. \u201cI made sure to look the staffers in their eyes and let them know who I was.\u201d<\/p>\n
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But not everyone was receptive to the message. After Casiano shared Halo\u2019s story and photo with a staffer for her congressman, U.S. Rep. Morgan Luttrell<\/a>, R-Magnolia, she was told the office is \u201cpro-life\u201d and escorted out minutes after.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a slap in the face,\u201d she said. \u201cI really wish that [the staffer] would have taken a deep breath with me.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Despite their annual visits to the Hill and efforts to share their stories with lawmakers, abortion advocates have struggled to break through in a Congress that, since Dobbs, has lacked the numbers to roll back state bans or otherwise loosen restrictions.<\/p>\n Rather, some GOP lawmakers say they want to further clamp down on abortion by targeting pills like mifepristone, which now account for nearly two\u2011thirds of abortions nationwide. In Texas, telehealth makes up virtually all abortion care that still happens within state law, according to recent estimates.<\/a><\/p>\n U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne<\/a>, R-Irving, said advocates\u2019 warnings about the effects of abortion bans were overblown and intended to \u201cscare the shit out of people.\u201d And she criticized federal rules that allow abortion medication to be prescribed virtually and mailed to patients.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat you saw with Dobbs was the same scare tactics we always hear from Democrats about what Republicans are going to do, and history has proven them wrong once again,\u201d Van Duyne said, adding that she still sees work to be done in scrapping federal policies allowing drugs like mifepristone \u201cthat actually kill a baby.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Abortion and the campaign trail<\/p>\n Advocates like Casiano are also confronting the reality that, at least in Texas, abortion access is not top of mind for voters. In a recent Texas Politics Project poll<\/a>, just 2% of voters named abortion as the most important problem facing the state, with inflation and the economy and a host of other issues ranking higher.<\/p>\n That disconnect is something Kaitlyn Kash, an Austin mom who joined a 2023 lawsuit challenging Texas\u2019 narrow medical exceptions to its abortion bans, says she thinks about when she talks to Texans about her own experience.<\/p>\n Kash, who has spent the last three Dobbs anniversaries on the Hill, said she tries to be careful when speaking about abortion and reframes it as a broader fight over access to reproductive healthcare \u2014 and as an issue that\u2019s interwoven with the economy, people\u2019s families and their freedoms.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cYou can have more than one issue. I don’t think people understand that you’re not voting about abortion, you’re voting for reproductive healthcare because they’re all interrelated,\u201d Kash said. \u201cIt’s a continuum of care, and doctors need the ability to be able to give you that care.\u201d<\/p>\n Raven E. Freeborn, a former abortion doula and president of Avow, a Texas-based abortion-rights organization, said she doesn\u2019t see abortion as separate from voters\u2019 pocketbook worries.<\/p>\n \u201cAbortion rights and access are vital to affordability,\u201d she said. \u201cNot being able to access abortion when you need it, that’s an economic justice issue. You’ll likely miss work, so you’re going to lose wages. Economic justice, affordability, reproductive justice, and abortion access are all living inside the same constellation.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n While Casiano, Kash and others have failed to move the needle on Capitol Hill, their stories, along with the deaths of Texas women<\/a> due to delayed treatment, have helped generate changes at the state level. Last year, Texas lawmakers passed Senate Bill 31<\/a>, dubbed the Life of the Mother Act, a measure that directs doctors to use \u201creasonable medical judgment\u201d in medical emergencies involving a patient\u2019s life or serious harm. The law says a medical crisis need not be \u201cimminent\u201d before healthcare providers can act, and that a doctor can only be charged if the state can prove \u201cno reasonable doctor\u201d would have made the same call.<\/p>\n But some advocates say that has not helped when it matters. Texas Equal Access Fund, an abortion access advocacy group, has called SB 31 a \u201cfake fix,\u201d arguing it adds legal red tape for physicians without resolving the gray area around the ban\u2019s exceptions, still leaving pregnant patients in medical limbo.<\/p>\n Additionally, two Austin-area emergency rooms were the subject of a recent federal complaint<\/a> from a woman alleging she was denied miscarriage care, even with the new clarifying language on the books.<\/p>\n John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, an anti-abortion group that helped craft Texas\u2019 abortion bans and SB 31, said he sees the remaining problems not as flaws in the statutes but as failures in how hospitals and attorneys are applying them. That was the impetus, he explained, behind the new law\u2019s requirement for the Texas Medical Board to create training for doctors who perform obstetrics care.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWe passed Senate Bill 31 last session to require education of physicians on this topic, because we want the message to be very clear that whenever there’s a serious situation like an ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage, there is no hesitation, that doctors are supposed to serve those women and help them immediately,\u201d he said. \u201c[If] the attorney at the hospital misrepresented the law, that’s just malpractice.\u201d<\/p>\n Freeborn pushed back, describing abortion as more than an emergency moment, but also as \u201chealthcare, a political bargaining chip and a moral clause.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese doctors are wrestling with everything that\u2019s in the room with them about a healthcare procedure \u2014 stigma, shame, disinformation \u2014 and that is not true of other medical care,\u201d Freeborn said. \u201cBirthing people are navigating their reproductive realities, and their ability to have bodily autonomy and govern over themselves is often in question by way of their relationship to something else.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Some research has found that Texas\u2019 abortion restrictions are linked to worsening mental health among reproductive\u2011age women. A study of more than 15,000 Texas women<\/a> found that reports of \u201cfrequent mental distress\u201d rose significantly after the state in 2021 banned most abortions after about six weeks.<\/p>\n Cracking down on abortion pills<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Seago\u2019s group and other anti-abortion advocates have been moving to restrict the flow of abortion drugs to states like Texas where the procedure is banned. The Texas GOP, for example, listed \u201cprotect life\u201d as one of its eight legislative priorities at last month\u2019s convention, a plank that includes a call for \u201cstrong criminal penalties and new enforcement tools to fight abortion and abortion pill trafficking.\u201d<\/p>\n In a letter<\/a> signed last week by more than 80 anti-abortion groups, advocates urged Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to settle a lawsuit challenging the Food and Drug Administration\u2019s Biden-era policy allowing mail delivery of mifepristone.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cPro-life states cannot enforce their laws while an FDA regulation gives cover to mail-order abortionists and DOJ defends the profits of abortion drug manufacturers,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a> has filed two civil suits since 2024 against out\u2011of\u2011state providers he says illegally mailed abortion pills to Texans.<\/p>\n In a statement marking the four-year anniversary of Dobbs, Jonathan Saenz, president of the conservative advocacy group Texas Values, celebrated that Texas \u201chas been a beacon of life\u201d since the decision, while calling for action on drugs like mifepristone.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the state where Roe v. Wade originated, Texans have a deep and personal stake in never going back to that deadly time period,\u201d said Saenz, one of the signatories on the letter to Blanche. \u201cSadly, illegal mail order abortion pills are still being sent into Texas and we must continue working hard to protect moms and babies from this type of exploitation.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Abortion advocates like Kate Cox say lawmakers should focus instead on Texas\u2019 post-Dobbs medical landscape. The Dallas mother, who traveled to New Mexico to terminate her pregnancy in 2023 after her fetus was diagnosed with a genetic condition that\u2019s almost always fatal, said she is concerned that the state\u2019s severe abortion penalties, even with SB 31, will push OB\u2011GYNs to practice in other states and make Texas a less attractive place for top medical talent.<\/p>\n \u201cI think new OB-GYNs coming out of school look at the situation, and they don’t want to come practice in Texas, where they would have to navigate what would be a very different situation in other states,\u201d said Cox, the first adult woman to seek a court\u2019s permission<\/a> to have an abortion post-Dobbs. \u201cI was in the emergency room four times, and I asked my doctor, \u2018If I choose not to continue the pregnancy, can I make that decision?\u2019 And she said, \u2018Not in Texas.\u2019 I think that puts them in a very difficult spot.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s why Cox wants lawmakers to focus less on prescribing what doctors can do and more on recognizing the volatile realities of pregnancy.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cEvery pregnancy is different. Some bring joy, some bring heartbreak, and some bring medical emergencies,\u201d Cox said. \u201cThe Legislature can write a law that covers every possibility with compassion. And the more we learn about pregnancy, the more we realize how unpredictable it can be. Instead of trying to legislate every scenario, we should trust families and the physicians that are caring for them.\u201d<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on The Texas Tribune<\/a>. Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abortion rights demonstrators rally at the Capitol in Austin, Texas, on Saturday May 14, 2022. Demonstrators are rallying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-362652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Abortion-hearing-JT-08.jpg\")
\nFrom left: Dr. Damla Karsan, a Houston-based OB-GYN, Amanda Zurawski, Samantha Casiano, Molly Duane, senior staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, and Ashley Brandt, address the press following the first day of testimony for Zurawski v. State of Texas outside the Travis County Civil and Family Courts Facility in Austin on July 19, 2023.<\/p>\n![\"Kaitlyn](\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/0407-Lethal-Fetal-Anomalies-LW-04.jpg\")
\nKaitlyn Kash poses for a portrait in the Texas Capitol on April 7, 2025.<\/p>\n![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/20250920-Texas-Youth-Summit-MF-01.jpg\")
\nJohn Seago listens while on a panel during the Texas Youth Summit in The Woodlands on Sept. 20, 2025.<\/p>\n![\"Kate](\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/0824-Collin-Allred-Women-ST-30.jpg\")
\nKate Cox speaks at the kick-off event for the \u201cWomen for Allred\u201d coalition addressing the state of women\u2019s health and abortion rights, in Dallas on Aug. 24, 2024.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783346650_629_cropped-cropped-texas-tribune-favicon.png\")
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