(The Center Square) \u2013 New laws are now in effect designed to protect women and girls including in publicly funded spaces and throughout state code, which now defines sex-based terms. A new chemical abortion pill ban is also now effective statewide.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Texas Women\u2019s Privacy Act, filed by<\/a> state Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston,\u00a0state Rep. Angelia Orr, R-Itasca, and multiple cosponsors, is now in effect. It requires political subdivisions and state agencies to implement policies to ensure that private spaces they own or control are designated for use by individuals based on their biological sex. This includes publicly funded bathrooms, domestic abuse shelters, locker rooms among others. \u00a0<\/p>\n The new law imposes<\/a> a civil penalty of $25,000 for the first violation and $125,000 for the second or subsequent violations.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Abbott also signed into law Texas\u2019 first Women\u2019s Bill of Rights<\/a>, which codifies sex-based terms.<\/p>\n State government code now defines “boy” as a child of the male sex; “father” as a parent of the male sex; “female” and “woman” as an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova; “girl” as a child of the female sex; “male” and “man” as an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female; “mother” as a parent of the female sex; and “sex” as an individual’s biological sex, either male or female.<\/p>\n It also establishes that males and females \u201cpossess unique immutable biological differences that manifest prior to birth and increase as individuals age and experience puberty; \u2026 only females are able to get pregnant, give birth, and breastfeed children \u2026; biological differences between the sexes leave females more physically vulnerable than males to specific forms of violence, including sexual violence; females have historically suffered discrimination in education, athletics, and employment; biological differences between the sexes are enduring and may, in some circumstances, warrant the creation of separate social, educational, athletic, or other spaces in order to ensure individuals’ safety and allow members of each sex to succeed and thrive.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The new laws follow others the legislature passed to protect women and girls. In 2023, Abbott signed the Save Women\u2019s Sports Act into law, which prohibits biological men from competing on a team or as an individual against women in college sports, The Center Square\u00a0reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2021, Abbott first signed a bill into law to protect girls\u2019 sports in Texas public schools. In the 2017 and 2019 legislative sessions, he signed four bills into law to address student safety and adjudication processes for reports of sexual harassment and sexual assault on college campuses.<\/p>\n Last year, Abbott instructed Texas colleges and universities to ignore a Biden administration rewrite of Title IX that redefined \u201csex\u201d to include \u201cgender identify.\u201d Texas also sued to stop the action and won, The Center Square\u00a0reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Abbott also signed into law The Texas Woman and Child Protection Act, which is now in effect. Filed by state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, and state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, it creates<\/a> civil penalties of up to $100,000 for producers and distributors of chemical abortion pills in Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n In June, on the three-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, dozens of state lawmakers and prolife groups called on<\/a> Abbott to add an abortion pill ban to the agenda for the first special legislative session. He added it but it and all bills went nowhere after House Democrats absconded, shutting down legislative business for a month.\u00a0<\/p>\n After Democrats returned and after Abbott called a second special legislative session, it was added to that session\u2019s agenda and passed.<\/p>\n Despite Texas\u2019 legislative abortion bans, abortion medications mifepristone (Mifeprex) and Misoprostol were being delivered in Texas. Now their sale and delivery are banned and civil liability tools are available to use \u201cagainst those trafficking abortion pills,\u201d including those \u201cmailing, delivering, or trafficking abortion pills,\u201d according to the bill language. The new law holds liable manufacturers and distributors of abortion pills and allows women and their family members \u201cto bring wrongful death and injury suits six years after being injured by abortion,\u201d according to the bill analysis.<\/p>\n The bill was passed after concerns were raised about the alleged harm the pills cause women. Women are 10 times more likely to die from the pills than from surgical abortions, state Rep. Mitch Little, R-Lewisville, argued when advocating for the bill\u2019s passage.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n When purchasing the pills online, \u201cwithout in-person medical care, follow-up care, or preventative testing \u2026 it is possible that serious health risks from the use of abortion inducing drugs may arise, including sepsis, \u2026 ectopic pregnancy, loss of fallopian tubes, hemorrhage, and death,\u201d Leach argued.<\/a> Purchasing the pills online from out-of-state providers \u201cmay lead to an increase in incidents of forced abortion, abuse, and crimes against women by abusers and human traffickers,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n The bill was also passed after a Parker County man was arrested and charged with purchasing abortion pills online and giving them to his former girlfriend without her knowledge, resulting in her unborn baby\u2019s death, The Center Square reported.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Similar to Texas\u2019 other abortion bans, the mother is protected from prosecution.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2013 New laws are now in effect designed to protect women and girls including in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,9488,27],"class_list":["post-92249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-general","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92249","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=92249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}