In 2013, two years after Texas’ Republican leadership slashed funding for family planning in an effort to put Planned Parenthood out of business, Texas was still a hotbed of debate on women’s health and abortion. Though state lawmakers banded together in the regular legislative session to restore family planning financing to help low-income women prevent unintended pregnancies, partisan debate on new abortion regulations — spearheaded by Texas Gov. Rick Perry — still divided the Legislature in a special session. Democratic State Sen. Wendy Davis’s successful filibuster of a 20-week ban on abortion, an event that made national headlines thanks to the Tribune’s legislative livestream, ultimately hardened Republican resolve to pass some of the strictions in the country. Throughout the budget negotiations, the 13-hour filibuster and the rollout of the new abortion restrictions, The Texas Tribune has provided the most consistent coverage in the state on the intersection of politics and women’s health care. And we’ve produced multiple investigations evaluating the broader effects of the state’s decisions. The Tribune’s probe of safety records at Texas abortion facilities found little evidence to support Republican lawmakers’ claims that existing clinics were dangerous. After state health officials ejected Planned Parenthood clinics from a contraception and cancer-screening program for low-income women and vowed it would have no major effect, our analysis showed a dramatic drop-off in services provided. The Tribune also produced an ongoing series, “The Politics of Prevention,” to document the looming legal battle over Texas’ new abortion restrictions and the ongoing effects of the state’s family planning policies on contraception and cancer-screening programs for low-income women.
