Any old state controlled by aging Republicans can pass laws to dramatically restrict access to abortion. It’s what you do when your state faces poverty, drought and a ton of other pressing issues that you’d rather not deal with. But making the anti-abortion laws stick is the real challenge. Texas…
You’re a public health policymaker in Texas. Teenage girls in the state are getting knocked up at an alarming rate, then they’re having babies and getting knocked up again. The data, along with the bulk of the scientific literature, suggest that the state’s longstanding strategy of telling kids not to…
For the most part, Americans have come to accept restaurant- and workplace-smoking bans. Even in freedom-loving Texas, most residents view them less as an encroachment on individual liberty than a reasonable measure to protect the health of nonsmokers, even if their politicians don’t. The alarmed cries of nanny-statism are now…
Life Dynamics, the Denton-based pro-life group that long ago earned a permanent spot on Planned Parenthood’s anti-choice hall of fame, has always prided itself on being a bit different from its allies in the abortion fight. It’s less about standing outside of abortion clinics with photos of bloody fetuses than…
For several days now, state health officials have been sounding the alarm about a nascent measles outbreak in North Texas. As of Friday, there had been nine confirmed cases, a number that will grow as new reports from local health agencies filter up to the state. The epicenter of the…
The professional buzz kills at the Centers for Disease Control have no shortage of sobering alcohol statistics to aid their campaign against excessive drinking: 14,000 people die each year in drunk-driving crashes; 36,000 are killed by alcohol-related liver disease, hypertension, and other chronic illnesses; and another 5,500 are killed in…
Parkland Memorial Hospital, the Dallas County-run hospital, has had a rough go of it the past few years: the psych patient dying after being illegally restrained; the tainted vaginal instruments; the resident whose sexual assault of a patient was swept under the rug; the federal government’s declaration that the hospital…
In the past several weeks, Republicans have increased their steady barrage against the Affordable Care Act, but conservatives aren’t the only ones putting out propaganda. The liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund published a report on Thursday highlighting the benefits of Obamacare, particularly for poor people. The report, like…
The most restrictive part of Texas’ new. controversial abortion law isn’t its ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy — only 1 percent of abortions occur after this time anyway. It’s the “ambulatory surgical center” regulation that requires all clinics that perform abortions to become ambulatory surgical centers, which…
It hasn’t even been 24 hours since Governor Rick Perry signed House Bill 2, the infamous abortion clinic-killing bill, into law, and three Planned Parenthood clinics are already making plans to shut their doors. The Huffington Post reports that Planned Parenthood clinics in Bryan, Huntsville and Lufkin will close down…
At this point last year, Dallas County had already recorded a handful of West Nile deaths, a figure that would ramp up to 19 in the following weeks and months as the number of infections skyrocketed. But the West Nile outbreak of 2012, which resulted in a record 286 death…
A week after state Senator Wendy Davis power-talked her way into liberal America’s heart, reality continued to set in last night in Austin, where a panel of lawmakers approved the same set of abortion restrictions that Davis filibustered, while hundreds of people who registered to testify about the bill were…
It was something of a surprise when Parkland Hospital officials announced that, though they’re finishing construction on a brand new $1.27 billion facility, the decaying old campus across Harry Hines would need to remain open as an outpatient medical clinic. It was an costly proposition. Parkland would have to spend…
Dr. Christopher Duntsch didn’t last long as a doctor in Texas. Two and a half years after the state awarded him a medical license, the founder and chief surgeon of the Texas Neurosurgical Institute in Plano had it indefinitely revoked by the Texas Medical Board, which decided he posed a…
And there it is: Late last night, the Senate approved SB 5, a massive set of abortion restrictions that combine all the worst parts of most every anti-abortion bill filed in the regular session of the legislature. Well, all the worst parts, with one notable exception: The bill’s author, Republican…
This session in the Texas Legislature was sort of stupid, but then again, they usually are. Although they did manage to pass a budget, their main piece of business each session, your esteemed lawmakers also spent time approving such vital pieces of legislation as the “Merry Christmas Bill” . They…
A bill aimed to reform end-of-life care in Texas is likely to die in the state House. Although the bill made it through the Texas Senate, Representative Lois Kolkhorst, a Brenham Republican, told the Austin American-Statesman that it won’t get a vote due to splits among House Republicans. Currently if…
It’s always been nearly impossible to compare prices between hospitals. For one, most people who find themselves in an emergency room don’t have the leisure to shop around. Even if they do, where are they going to turn? Healthcare providers don’t typically put their prices on billboards. The opacity of…
Dallas Area Interfaith held a news conference this morning at Temple Emanu-El, where more than a dozen faith leaders from the Dallas area gathered to support Medicaid expansion. Since Friday, 60 clergy members from Catholic, Protestant and Jewish congregations have signed a letter calling on state lawmakers to opt in…
At first glance — and second, and third — Attorney General Greg Abbott’s opinion on Monday that cities, counties, and school districts are barred by the Texas Constitution from offering health benefits to the domestic partners of employees would seem to be a stumbling block on the road toward equal…
Last week, Texas Alliance for Life paused briefly in its crusade to enact increasingly onerous abortion restrictions and shifted its focus to the other end of the human lifespan. The group urged its supporters to lobby for passage of SB 303, state Senator Bob Deuell’s bill to reform end-of-life care…
In 2011, as we just cannot seem to stop mentioning, your state legislators cut $73 million from the state’s family planning budget, instituted a tiered funding system designed to give family planning clinics any federal dollars dead last, and launched a weird war on the Medicaid Women’s Health Program. All…
