Texas Abortion Recipients Not Subject to Penalty, Contrary to Online Claims

Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate. Quick Take Abortion is illegal in Texas, with narrow exceptions for the life and health of a pregnant patient. Those who provide abortions can face stiff penalties, but Texas law specifies that those who get an abortion are not to be penalized. Posts have been circulating online falsely claiming that those who get an abortion in Texas can face fines and prison time. Full Story Texas has a long history when it comes to banning abortion. Within a decade of joining the United States in 1845, Texas had criminalized abortion. The laws remained largely unchanged until a woman using the pseudonym Jane Roe challenged the state’s laws in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court and resulted, in 1973, in ensuring the right to access abortion across the country. The Roe v. Wade decision stood until the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson in 2022, which overruled Roe. Texas was one of 13 states, according to the Congressional Research Service, that had a so-called “trigger law” that would ban abortion in the event Roe was overturned. The Texas trigger law, which was passed in 2021,...