Active State Laws

1989: The Abortion Facility Reporting and Licensing Act establishes safety standards, reporting requirements, and inspection schedules for abortion clinics.

1999: The Parental Notification Law requires parents to be notified of their minor daughter’s intent to seek and undergo an abortion.

1999: The Third Trimester Abortion Ban prohibits most third trimester elective abortions.

2003: A Woman’s Right to Know Act establishes informed consent and requires that relevant information be offered to women seeking abortion 24 hours before an abortion could take place. 

2003: The Prenatal Protection Act recognizes unborn children as victims of state crimes from fertilization.

2005: Established the state-funded Alternatives to Abortion program

  • This program partners with pregnancy centers, adoption agencies, and maternity homes to fund Pro-Life alternatives for expecting and new parents up to three years after birth.

2005: A doctor may lose his or her medical license for committing an elective third trimester abortion.

2005: Parental consent is added to the existing Parental Notification Law.

2011: The Texas Sonogram Bill requires abortionists to show a woman seeking an abortion her ultrasound image before the procedure.

2011: Redirected $64.3 million in taxpayer funding from the abortion industry to Life-affirming healthcare programs.

2011: Restructured Family Planning Programs to prohibit the abortion industry from receiving family planning funding from the state budget.

2013: House Bill 2 introduces several new exceptions:

2015: House Bill 3994 reforms the judicial bypass process where pregnant minors may circumvent the parental consent and notification provisions in state law:

  • Removes the automatic granting of these bypasses & required judges to rule. 
  • Stops the abortion industry’s ability to venue shop, picking a friendly judge with a greater likelihood of granting the bypass.
  • Focuses the process on domestic abuse and neglect of minors as the reason for the bypass, eliminating some of the reasons previously used to grant bypasses.

2015: House Bill 3074 introduces some patient protections:

  • Treats Artificially Administered Nutrition & Hydration (AANH) different from other life-sustaining treatments.
  • Ensures that, in most cases, AANH cannot be removed from patients against their wishes or the wishes of their surrogates.

2017: Senate Bill 8 creates several new protections:

2017: Blocked state funding of abortion providers and their affiliates through a Pro-Life rider to the state budget. 

2017: Increased funding to the state’s program for Alternatives to Abortion to $38.3 million.

2017: Pro-Life Health Insurance Reform prohibits the coverage of elective abortions through public, private, and state employee default basic health plans.

2017: A law establishing patient consent for Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) orders requires patient or surrogate consent before most DNR orders are placed in patients’ medical records and empowers patients and surrogates to revoke unwanted DNR orders.

2017: Multiple bills further expand abortion reporting requirements:

  • Codifies department rules requiring the reporting of abortion complications to the Health and Human Services Commission, including civil penalties and possible loss of license for abortionists and physicians who violate the law.
  • Requires abortionists to report whether and how the clinics are following the law when minors seek abortions with or without parental consent (and when judicial bypass of parental consent is sought).

2019: The No Tax Dollars to Abortion Providers Act puts an existing prohibition on state funding of and contracting with abortion providers and their affiliates into state law. It also prevents local governments from funding, contracting, benefiting, or lobbying on behalf of abortion providers and their affiliates.

2019: Doubled funding to the state’s Pro-Life Alternatives to Abortion Program in the 2-year Texas budget to $79.8 million.

2019: A patient protection amendment to House Bill 1504 (Texas Medical Board Sunset Bill) requires that physicians make a reasonable effort to transfer patients to a willing facility or physician when subjecting patients to the anti-Life 10-Day Rule of the Texas Advance Directives Act.

2021: Senate Bill 8, the Texas Heartbeat Act, prohibits abortion when the preborn child’s heartbeat is detectable according to the standard medical practice. The only exception is in the case of a medical emergency to save the life of the mother. Enforcement relies on civil liability by private citizens to hold anyone accountable who performs, aids, or abets in an illegal abortion.

2021: Increased funding to the state’s Pro-Life Alternatives to Abortion Program in the 2-year Texas budget to $100 million.

2021: The Human Life Protection Act, also known as the Texas Trigger Law, passed and would go into effect when the final judgment in a case overturning Roe v. Wade was entered. While Texas’ pre-Roe statutes prohibiting elective abortion were still on the books, this law provides additional penalties for abortionists.. The law took effect on August 25, 2022.

2021: Senate Bill 4 created new regulations related to abortion pills:

  • Limits use of abortion-inducing drugs to 49 days gestational age
  • Prohibits manufacturers, suppliers, and abortionists from mailing or delivering abortion-inducing drugs 
  • Removes references and ties to the Food and Drug Administration protocol for chemical abortions
  • Enforces a state jail felony for a person who violates this law. 

2022: Pre-Roe v. Wade Texas laws became immediately enforceable again when the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. These laws protect all preborn children within the state from abortion from the moment of fertilization, without prohibiting procedures done to save the mother’s life.

2023: House Bill 3162 introduces incremental reforms of the Texas Advance Directives Act:

  • Protects competent patients from the countdown.
  • Prohibits hospitals from withdrawing treatment based on discriminatory “quality of life” determinations.
  • Requires hospitals to perform certain procedures necessary to facilitate a transfer before imposing the countdown.
  • Extends the countdown from 10 days to 25 days.

2023: Senate Bill 412 codifies federal protections from discrimination for pregnant and parenting students at the state level.

2023: Senate Bill 459 offers priority college class registration for students parenting children under 18 years old.

2023: The long-standing Alternatives to Abortion program is codified into law and renamed to the Thriving Texas Families Program. In 2023, it received a total of $165 million over the financial biennium through House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 30.

2025: The Stop Tax-Funded Abortion Travel Act specifies that governmental entities cannot give tax dollars to groups that facilitate out-of-state abortion travel. 

2025: The Woman and Child Protection Act expands penalties for the trafficking of abortion drugs into the state of Texas. Like the Texas Heartbeat Act, this new law is enforceable through civil lawsuits. Anyone who manufactures, ships, or traffics abortion drugs within Texas is liable under the law, regardless of whether the pill was used to induce an abortion. 

2025: The Life of the Mother Act makes uniform the language in the law regarding medical emergencies: 

  • Makes it clear that doctors can act to save a mother’s life, even if that threat is not immediate, even if the intervention tragically results in the preborn child passing away.
  • Requires continuing education for physicians so that they fully understand Pro-Life laws.