FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 1, 2016
Austin, TX – Earlier this week, after receiving thousands of comments against the rules, the Texas Department of State Health Services finalized administrative requirements that would require burial or cremation of embryonic and fetal tissue resulting from abortions or miscarriages. The rules were first proposed back in July, only days after our historic win at the Supreme Court in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, in which the nation’s highest court declared Texas’ anti-abortion regulations were indeed unconstitutional. These new administrative requirements serve no other purpose than to humiliate and stigmatize Texas women, families and healthcare providers.
Statement from Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health:
“At Whole Woman’s Health, we keep women at the center of all that we do. Their dignity and respect means everything to us. Texas’ profound disrespect of women’s health and dignity apparently has no bounds with this new administrative requirement that they’ve put forward. These rules have absolutely no added benefit to women’s health and safety and are clearly an undue burden. As was decided this summer in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Supreme Court ruled that you can’t put a burden in the path of women seeking safe abortion care unless you can justify that it somehow furthers women’s health and safety. This administrative rule has nothing to do with women’s health and safety, it is clearly unconstitutional.
Texas did an end run game through the administrative process and ignored thousands of people’s testimony and commentary. But make no mistake, we see them and we see what they are up to. Whole Woman’s Health stands for Texas women and families as everyone saw with our three-year challenge of House Bill 2 and our ultimate victory in the Supreme Court this summer. We will not stand for Texas putting more undue burdens on women and families who deserve safe and compassionate abortion care that we provide at Whole Woman’s Health.”
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