AUSTIN — Gov. Greg Abbott recently signed a bill bolstering reporting requirements for those who provide abortions to minors, but critics say it and two other abortion measures will hurt, not help Texas women.

The notice bill, which takes effect this fall, requires doctors who perform abortions on minors to report how the patient obtained authorization.

“When abortions occur, especially on minors, Texas must do everything possible to protect these young mothers,” said Abbott said in a statement on House Bill 215. “Thanks to this law, we will now have more accurate data concerning abortions being performed on minors.”

Abbott also signed a law barring abortion coverage under general insurance plans, leaving women to buy separate policies or to pay out of pocket; and another, which supporters said is designed to close loopholes in reporting abortion complications. 

While the insurance and reporting bills — all were passed during this summer’s special session — won’t take effect until this fall, attorneys are preparing to head into court Tuesday to litigate an abortion law that came out of the regular session of the Legislature that pro-choice advocates say is part of an ongoing attempt to make access more difficult.

The law being challenged in court next week, Senate Bill 8, bans a common second-trimester abortion procedure, and will essentially forbid abortion after 13 weeks because alternative methods could threaten women’s health.

The challenge comes about a year since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Texas’ clinic-shutdown law in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.

The law, set to take effect on Sept. 1, also mandates cremation or burial of their embryonic and fetal tissue following abortion.  

Seven other states have similar bans. 

Legal challenges have kept laws in Louisiana, Kansas and Oklahoma from taking effect.

Opponents have stopped a similar Alabama ban and are also challenging an Arkansas ban.

In defending the insurance measure to fellow lawmakers, the principal author of HB 214, state Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, said that “ultimately it’s economic objection to being forced to pay for something that I would prefer not to pay for.”

Abbott said in a statement that the insurance bill would prevent Texans from having to pay for procedures that end unborn lives. 

“This bill prohibits insurance providers from forcing Texas policy holders to subsidize elective abortions,” Abbott said. “I am grateful to the Texas legislature for … working to protect innocent life this special session.”

The law makes no exceptions for rape, incest or fetal abnormalities, and critics say that insurance providers don’t typically sell supplemental abortion coverage.

“It is creating an situation where most women have insurance when they need it” and part of a “365-day-a-year” effort to create barriers and “dismantle the safety net that women count on for health care and to plan and space pregnancies,” said Sarah Wheat, chief external affairs officer for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas.

State Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, opposed the trio of abortion regulations that emerged from the special session.

“It is quite telling that, of the 12 bills from the special session which were signed into law, three were measures designed to erode reproductive rights in Texas,” Howard said in a statement. “These new laws do nothing to promote the health and safety of women, and were passed in spite of the objections and concerns of the medical community.”

Blake Rocap, legislative counsel for NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, a statewide reproductive rights advocacy agency, said that proponents of the just-enacted bills were “looking for a bogeyman in the closet that’s just not there,” in passing the laws that addressed non-existent problems.

But Abbott said in a statement on HB 13, the abortion-complication reporting measure, that “the health and safety of women is of the utmost importance, and we must have the most accurate data available in order to create good policy.”

John Austin covers the Texas Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jaustin@cnhi.com.