Inside Texas’ Failed Experiment to Replace Planned Parenthood with an Anti-Abortion Group
The Heidi Group’s quick rise and fall is a cautionary tale of prioritizing politics over proven health providers.
Donna Howard
Texas House Advances Bill that Could Actually Clear the Rape Kit Backlog
Lawmakers have been using Band-Aids to address the backlog of untested rape kits since 2011. This session could bring a real fix.
With Accidental Gun Deaths on the Rise, Some Texas Lawmakers Won’t Even Support a Gun Safety Public Awareness Campaign
The floundering of House Bill 316 shows that Republicans are still unwilling to stand up to the NRA and far-right primary voters.
Texas Prison Reformers Demand Dignity for Incarcerated Women
Bills addressing the basic needs of incarcerated women bolster the larger call for reform in the state prison system this session.
How 50 Years of Feminism in the Texas Legislature Shaped the Fights We See Today
Legislators began tackling issues like funding family planning, equal economic opportunity for women and justice for sexual assault survivors in the early 1970s. Their work continues a half-century later.
Texas Ends Contracts for Anti-Abortion Group Tapped to Provide Women’s Health Services
The announcement comes two weeks after the Observer reported that the Heidi Group served just 3,300 of the 70,000 patients it promised.
‘Shamed and Stigmatized’: Austin Woman Forced by Hospital to Bury Fetal Remains Testifies Against State Law
Blake Norton, who shared her experience publicly for the first time with the Observer earlier this year, testified in federal court that the forced fetal burial left her “shocked, upset, confused.”
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Lawmaker: State Metric for Success of Women’s Health Program is ‘Totally Misleading’
New data shows nearly half of the providers in the low-income Healthy Texas Women program saw zero patients last year.
Indoctrinated
A Catholic hospital in Austin forces patients who miscarry to consent to fetal burials. For one woman, that made a painful loss even worse — and she worries it could soon become routine across Texas.
