The Texas Department of State Health Services is circumventing the democratic process at the behest of TX State Rep. Bill Zedler, who could not get these new regulations passed through the TX legislature.

These new reporting requirements would force abortion providers in the state to collect and report personal information about people who have abortions and the providers who do them: the patient's highest level of education; whether the patient viewed printed health materials provided by the state; whether the sonogram image, verbal explanation of the image and audio of a heartbeat were made available; whether the patient completed the "Abortion and Sonogram Election form"; the method used to dispose of fetal tissue and remains; if a patient is younger than 18, was consent obtained; and the method of pregnancy verification.

Additionally, the requirements that got loudest response were the "new rules requiring individual physicians to report, within 20 days, any complications resulting from an abortion procedure. Abortion providing facilities already report complications to the DSHS, causing a number of meeting attendees to call the new rule redundant and potentially intimidating, especially to individual abortion-providing physicians who aren't intimately familiar with reporting requirements the way clinical facilities are." (quote from Andrea Grimes at RH Reality Check)

If this cannot be passed through the conservative TX legislature, there is NO reason that DSHS should be writing these new rules into the reporting requirements. And if the DSHS's vision is "A Healthy Texas" it should NOT be passing new rules and regulations that serve only to intimidate abortion providers and their patients.