The Texas Supreme Court has opted to keep in place a legal process that allows minors to seek a judge’s approval to have an abortion without parental consent, though state law now bans the procedure in most circumstances.
Chief Justice Nathan Hecht had asked an advisory committee to the high court to make a recommendation on the matter last month, citing the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that overturned federal protections for abortion as the reason for the reconsideration.
The committee unanimously voted to keep in place the process, known as judicial bypass, and add new language spelling out that it will only be available to minors in the extremely limited circumstances allowed by Texas law: when their life or major bodily functions are at risk.
See here and here for the background, and here for the actual rules. I’m glad to see that my initial fear that this would be a disaster was off base. That said, while this is good news it’s not great news, and that’s because the judicial bypass process is even rarer than it was before the Lege passed that vigilante bounty hunter law. As the story notes, in the last month before that law was passed, 20 minors were able to obtain a bypass. In the first month after it passed, that number was two. I guarantee you, the need for this didn’t drop by ninety percent. Just the ability to get the care these girls need. The fact that it didn’t fall all the way to zero counts as a win these days.