This is a pleasant surprise.
An advisory committee to the Texas Supreme Court voted unanimously Friday to keep in place a legal procedure that allows minors to get a judge’s approval to have an abortion without the legally necessary parental consent.
[…]
Texas will ban nearly all abortions on Aug. 25 under a new law that was triggered by the high court’s decision. The law includes no exception for victims of rape or incest, but it does include an exception for pregnancies that risk death or “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.” The exception has spurred debate statewide, especially among doctors and hospital groups concerned that it is too vague and creates legal liability for them.
The subcommittee that reviewed the issue on Friday noted that the situations in which minors will be seeking abortions will be extremely limited, but could plausibly arise.
Legislative mandates subcommittee chair Jim Perdue said at the meeting Friday held in Fort Worth and livestreamed online that the decision was separate from the political debate over abortion. The legal procedure available to minors, known as judicial bypass, has never had to do with whether an abortion is proper or improper, he said, but rather whether a minor should be able to make the decision without parental consent.
Texas law already allows doctors to perform abortions during medical emergencies when there is “insufficient time” to provide parental notice. Perdue, echoing what lawyers who represent the minors in court had argued, said there may still be situations that are critical to the patient’s health but not necessarily urgent emergencies.
“You don’t need to be bleeding out actively to potentially have a situation where a woman under the age of 18 is pregnant and suffering a life-threatening condition,” Perdue said.
Blake Rocap, legal director for Jane’s Due Process, which offers legal representation to minors seeking judicial bypass, said the subcommittee memo “correctly identifies the continuing need for the bypass rules and makes appropriate recommendations to acknowledge the impending change in Texas law without adding new requirements or making substantive changes that would be outside the scope of the rules committee and the judicial branch.”
See here for the background – my apologies for the inconsistency in naming standards. These are just the committee’s recommendations, the Court still has to adopt them, so the possibility that this could go sideways remains. But so far so good. This was the best possible outcome. We should know soon whether it sticks.