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Texas passed the Life of the Mother Act in 2025. Experts say it will take time to see if the law will have the effect of saving the lives of pregnant women who need emergency abortions for medical reasons. (Patricia Lim | KUT)<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\tTexas passed the Life of the Mother Act in 2025. Experts say it will take time to see if the law will have the effect of saving the lives of pregnant women who need emergency abortions for medical reasons. (Patricia Lim | KUT)<\/p>\n
More than a year after the Texas Legislature passed a law aimed at clarifying when doctors can legally perform abortions in emergencies, professionals who advocated for the legislation are now working to ensure women and physicians know their rights.<\/p>\n
Abortion is banned in Texas, with a narrow exception for when a woman\u2019s life or a major bodily function is at risk. But, leading up to the 2025 legislative session, many doctors and reproductive rights advocates said the law was unclear about what defined a medical emergency. Doctors could face up to $100,000 fines, the loss of their medical license and extensive prison time for violating the ban.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why many physicians urged legislators to pass Senate Bill 31, also known as the Life of the Mother Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know this bill will help save women\u2019s lives,\u201d Dr. Deborah Fuller, a Dallas-based OB-GYN, said during a hearing for SB 31\u2019s House companion bill last year.<\/p>\n
After extensive debate and some key amendments, the law passed with bipartisan support. It clarified that a pregnant person\u2019s death or impairment does not have to be \u201cimminent\u201d before a doctor can step in, and that doctors can discuss abortion with colleagues and patients while considering the best treatment option. While SB 31 did not remove the potential penalties for doctors who break the law, it confirmed that the burden of proof is on the state, which must demonstrate that \u201cno reasonable doctor\u201d would have provided an abortion in the same situation.<\/p>\n
Now that the Life of the Mother Act is law, Fuller said she believes it is working and has eased many doctors\u2019 anxieties when making critical medical decisions. But she said work still needs to be done to educate both physicians and pregnant women throughout the state about their rights under the law.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of [my patients] have not heard of it,\u201d Fuller said.<\/p>\n
Spreading the word<\/p>\n
Fuller is now on the advisory committee for \u201cAsking for a Mom,\u201d<\/a> a campaign to ensure that pregnant women and their loved ones are informed about Texas\u2019 abortion laws, including the Life of the Mother Act. It\u2019s a project of the Texas Campaign for Mothers, a nonprofit that lobbied for SB 31. The group defines itself as nonpartisan and encourages Texans across party lines to join but has several influential Republicans on its advisory board.<\/p>\n In addition to a website, \u201cAsking for a Mom\u201d puts information on brightly colored fliers for physicians to post or hand out inside their clinics. They include facts about when women can and can\u2019t receive an abortion \u2014 and what to do if they face barriers, like pushing to hear a doctor\u2019s reasoning or asking to transfer to another facility.<\/p>\n \u201cYou deserve timely, appropriate medical care,\u201d the flyers read.<\/p>\n Fuller said she hopes these resources will arm women with knowledge to navigate conversations with both their own OB-GYNs and emergency room doctors.<\/p>\n \u201cVery few of us in the state of Texas access legislation and know exactly what was written in laws,\u201d Fuller said. \u201cIn an obstetrical emergency, it would be very unusual for someone to access a law to find out, \u2018Oh, what is and what isn\u2019t happening? What is and isn\u2019t covered? Where am I in this legislation?\u201d<\/p>\n Getting doctors up to speed<\/p>\n Patients are only one half of the equation; the other is doctors.<\/p>\n Senate Bill 31 requires Texas OB-GYNs, ER doctors and family medicine physicians to receive online education on the law in order to renew their medical licenses. The Texas Medical Board\u2019s course includes a little over 40 slides<\/a> of material and discusses what to do in a few specific scenarios. For instance, it describes a pregnant woman with cancer who needs chemotherapy treatment and confirms that a termination would be allowed.<\/p>\n But because doctors only renew their licenses every two years, some have not yet taken the TMB\u2019s training course. \u201cAsking for a Mom\u201d is attempting to bridge that gap by hosting in-person trainings at medical schools and in other clinical settings.<\/p>\n Assisting in the effort is Central Texas OB-GYN Dr. Charles Brown, who said he sees value in providing an in-person forum, even for physicians who have already completed the training online.<\/p>\n \u201cI really felt like we needed to clear the air to try and get back on track to let the physicians do what they know how to do,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n Brown estimates he has visited at least a dozen medical residency programs to provide in-person training. The questions he gets from participants, he said, tend to be legal rather than medical.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the OB-GYN doctors know what to do,\u201d he said. \u201cThey need to have the confidence they can legally do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Lingering uncertainty<\/p>\n Brown acknowledges, however, that he sometimes receives specific legal questions he can\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a legal scholar,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it\u2019s a detailed question about the legal interpretation or some sort of legal obligation of the hospital corporation or someone else, I just defer that to their legal advice.\u201d<\/p>\n TMB\u2019s training emphasizes that doctors are able to lean on their judgment in emergencies. Reasonable medical judgment, according to the slides, is defined as \u201cjudgment made by a reasonably prudent physician who is knowledgeable about a case and the treatment possibilities for the medical condition involved.\u201d It does not mean all physicians would agree with the decision, and it does not require \u201cmedical certainty.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBottom line: if you are practicing evidence-based medicine, following standard emergency protocols, and documenting appropriately, the legal risk of prosecution is extremely low,\u201d one slide reads.<\/p>\n Some OB-GYNs in Texas still say the emergency exception to the state\u2019s abortion ban is too vague, even after Senate Bill 31\u2019s passage. Dr. Damla Karsan, a Houston-based physician who has challenged Texas\u2019 abortion law in multiple high-profile lawsuits, said SB 31 \u201cdidn\u2019t go near far enough,\u201d noting that it explicitly excluded lethal fetal anomalies. She also said she feels confusion persists for many doctors.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s still so much fear,\u201d she said. \u201cIf providers aren\u2019t 100% certain, they\u2019re going to delay.\u201d<\/p>\n Are delays in care still happening?<\/p>\n Delaying care can cost lives. A recent investigation from ProPublica<\/a> found that deaths from ectopic pregnancies doubled between 2020 and 2025, with the worst rates in states with strict abortion bans \u2014 such as Texas. Ectopic pregnancies occur when an embryo implants outside the uterus; they are not viable, and can result in lethal complications if not terminated promptly. In Texas, it is legal to terminate an ectopic pregnancy, as is specifically carved out in SB 31.<\/p>\n In one documented instance, a federal investigation found<\/a> a hospital in Williamson County failed to promptly treat a woman\u2019s ectopic pregnancy in 2023, instead waiting until it ruptured and her fallopian tube had to be removed. More recently, The Texas Tribune<\/a> reported that an Austin-area woman lodged federal complaints against multiple local hospitals for risking her health by delaying treatment for a miscarriage. She said the incident occurred in October 2025, after the Life of the Mother Act had become law; TMB specifies that removing the products of a miscarriage is legal in its training.<\/p>\n It may be some time before data is available that can shed light on whether Senate Bill 31 and the training tied to it are ultimately having the effect of saving lives at scale.<\/p>\n Texas\u2019 Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee releases reports on deaths associated with pregnancy and childbirth on a delayed schedule; it is now set to release data from 2024 in December<\/a> after a highly-criticized decision to skip data from 2022 and 2023, the years immediately after Texas instituted its ban. Initial data published by Texas Health and Human Services <\/a>shows 68 abortions were performed under the exception during the first six months of 2026, compared to 62 during the same period in 2025.<\/p>\n Dr. Charles Brown said \u201ctime will tell\u201d if the law is effective.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019m trying to make it as effective as it can be,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas passed the Life of the Mother Act in 2025. 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