Tag Archives: Donna Howard
Despite GOP Support in House, Bill to Provide Contraception to Low-Income Teens Stalls in Senate
House Bill 800 would save the state millions, reduce confusion among providers and lower Texas’ high teen birth rate, supporters say.
Texas has one of the highest teen birth rates in the country, with almost 27,000 babies born to teen mothers in 2017, and the highest rate of repeat pregnancies...Read More
‘Lies into Laws’: Texas House Passes ‘Born Alive’ Anti-Abortion Bill Despite Protest
“The aim of HB 16 is clear: further stigmatize abortion, misinform the public, intimidate physicians and interfere with women’s ability to seek medical care,” said state Representative Donna Howard.
As the Texas House voted on the first anti-abortion bill to make it to the floor this session, advocates rolled down a banner above the board displaying lawmake...Read More
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.
State lawmakers have been talking about fixing the rape kit backlog since 2011, when former state Senator Wendy Davis passed legislation requiring an audit that...Read More
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.
A 4-year-old boy in Texas City was at home with his grandmother last year when he found a handgun in a bedroom and fatally shot himself. The next day, a 6-year-...Read More
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.
Like four out of five women incarcerated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Maggie Luna was a mother when she went to prison. And like most women in p...Read More
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.
Legislators began tackling issues like funding family planning, equal economic opportunity for women and justice for sexual assault survivors in the early 1970s...Read More
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.
The Texas health agency announced late on Friday that it will terminate the state’s multi-million-dollar family planning contracts with the Heidi Group, the a...Read More
‘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.”
On the first day of the trial over Texas’ fetal burial law, abortion providers had a rejoinder to the claim that they don’t know how patients feel about the...Read More
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.
Texas’ health agency touts its growing provider list as evidence that the state’s low-income women’s health program is rebounding after devastating budget...Read More