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On Eve of SCOTUS Abortion Decision, Texas Accused of Suppressing Key Data
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/eve-supreme-court-abortion-decision-texas-accused-suppressing-key-data-n598071
"The Supreme Court is expected on Monday to announce its decision on Texas' abortion law, in what could be the most consequential ruling on the issue in a generation. The question: Do new requirements on abortion providers pose an unconstitutional "undue burden" on Texas women?
But among the reams of evidence presented to the high court and the public debate in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, something is still missing: A full, official account of the initial impact of the law on Texas women.
A state employee with knowledge of the annual data Texas collects on abortion spoke to NBC News and is accusing state officials overseeing the Department of Health Services of intentionally blocking the information and instructing staff members to mislead people who ask for it. Because fact-finding traditionally ends after such a case goes to trial, long before it reaches the Supreme Court, the justices may or may not have considered it. But in the court of public opinion, the data could potentially undermine Texas' official argument that its requirements pose no particular burden on women.
First catapulted to the national stage by then-state Sen. Wendy Davis' pink-sneakered filibuster, the law has a bundle of abortion restrictions. Local abortion clinics have asked the Supreme Court to block two of the rules: that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at local hospitals and that even early procedures, including "medication abortions" that involve only taking two pills, take place in expensive ambulatory surgical centers.
Saying they are unable to comply with the admitting privileges provision — in one border town, McAllen, no hospital would even send abortion providers an application — about half of the clinics in Texas have already closed since 2013. If the Supreme Court allows the other requirement to go into effect, only nine or 10 clinics will be left in a state with 5.4 million women of reproductive age.
The court previously defined an illegal "undue burden" as "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus." That's what makes information about the potential effect of the law so crucial, and it's why public health researchers and advocates are anxious to see Texas' data from 2014, the first full year the admitting privileges requirement was in effect.
The state did release a provisional raw number of abortions in 2014, which showed a sharp decline in the procedure, but the full figures would break down the data by procedure, gestational age, region and race, which potentially corroborates the argument that the law poses an undue burden.
"The data is not final. If the data were final, we would release it. We hope to have it finalized soon," said Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the department.
But according to the state employee, who provided emails and screenshots to NBC News that appear to corroborate the timeline, the abortion statistics were in the final stages months ago. In fact, according to this individual, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of ongoing employment there, in December 2015, researchers in the relevant department were actually told to get the information ready sooner than the usual 15 months.
"They definitely wanted the abortion data earlier," the state employee said. The researchers went to work on finalizing the numbers, delivering them in mid-February to a supervisor.
It was a particularly high-profile moment for the 2013 law, known in Texas as HB2. The Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case on March 2, and the justices expressed particular interest in the evidence of how abortion patterns had changed in the state, including the chosen method of terminating a pregnancy and whether the changing number of clinics could meet the existing demand.
But they did so without access to the official Texas data. After weeks of silence, according to the state employee, a supervisor instructed the department to stop discussing the abortion statistics over email or phone and to respond to any requests for information by saying the numbers weren't ready.
In a June 15 letter, the ACLU of Texas, which first referred the state employee to NBC News, wrote, "Rather than responding honestly and claiming a legal basis for withholding the 2014 statistical tables, it appears that your agency has chosen to hide the truth." The letter continued, referring to Texas' state public records law, "Lying in response to Public Information Act requests would subvert the purpose of the Act, whether or not there is an arguable legal basis for withholding information."
Asked to respond to these allegations in detail, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services wrote in an email in part, "The 2014 tables are under review, and we hope to have them finalized and released soon. For the last several years, Texas abortion data was typically finalized and published between March and June."
Minutes later, when NBC News followed up specifically to repeat claims that the data release was being intentionally delayed and employees were told to pretend they were not yet ready, the only answer was an out-of-office message.
The information could also potentially undermine Texas' rationale for the law, which is that it makes women safer............."
"The Supreme Court is expected on Monday to announce its decision on Texas' abortion law, in what could be the most consequential ruling on the issue in a generation. The question: Do new requirements on abortion providers pose an unconstitutional "undue burden" on Texas women?
But among the reams of evidence presented to the high court and the public debate in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, something is still missing: A full, official account of the initial impact of the law on Texas women.
A state employee with knowledge of the annual data Texas collects on abortion spoke to NBC News and is accusing state officials overseeing the Department of Health Services of intentionally blocking the information and instructing staff members to mislead people who ask for it. Because fact-finding traditionally ends after such a case goes to trial, long before it reaches the Supreme Court, the justices may or may not have considered it. But in the court of public opinion, the data could potentially undermine Texas' official argument that its requirements pose no particular burden on women.
First catapulted to the national stage by then-state Sen. Wendy Davis' pink-sneakered filibuster, the law has a bundle of abortion restrictions. Local abortion clinics have asked the Supreme Court to block two of the rules: that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at local hospitals and that even early procedures, including "medication abortions" that involve only taking two pills, take place in expensive ambulatory surgical centers.
Saying they are unable to comply with the admitting privileges provision — in one border town, McAllen, no hospital would even send abortion providers an application — about half of the clinics in Texas have already closed since 2013. If the Supreme Court allows the other requirement to go into effect, only nine or 10 clinics will be left in a state with 5.4 million women of reproductive age.
The court previously defined an illegal "undue burden" as "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus." That's what makes information about the potential effect of the law so crucial, and it's why public health researchers and advocates are anxious to see Texas' data from 2014, the first full year the admitting privileges requirement was in effect.
The state did release a provisional raw number of abortions in 2014, which showed a sharp decline in the procedure, but the full figures would break down the data by procedure, gestational age, region and race, which potentially corroborates the argument that the law poses an undue burden.
"The data is not final. If the data were final, we would release it. We hope to have it finalized soon," said Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the department.
But according to the state employee, who provided emails and screenshots to NBC News that appear to corroborate the timeline, the abortion statistics were in the final stages months ago. In fact, according to this individual, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of ongoing employment there, in December 2015, researchers in the relevant department were actually told to get the information ready sooner than the usual 15 months.
"They definitely wanted the abortion data earlier," the state employee said. The researchers went to work on finalizing the numbers, delivering them in mid-February to a supervisor.
It was a particularly high-profile moment for the 2013 law, known in Texas as HB2. The Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case on March 2, and the justices expressed particular interest in the evidence of how abortion patterns had changed in the state, including the chosen method of terminating a pregnancy and whether the changing number of clinics could meet the existing demand.
But they did so without access to the official Texas data. After weeks of silence, according to the state employee, a supervisor instructed the department to stop discussing the abortion statistics over email or phone and to respond to any requests for information by saying the numbers weren't ready.
In a June 15 letter, the ACLU of Texas, which first referred the state employee to NBC News, wrote, "Rather than responding honestly and claiming a legal basis for withholding the 2014 statistical tables, it appears that your agency has chosen to hide the truth." The letter continued, referring to Texas' state public records law, "Lying in response to Public Information Act requests would subvert the purpose of the Act, whether or not there is an arguable legal basis for withholding information."
Asked to respond to these allegations in detail, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services wrote in an email in part, "The 2014 tables are under review, and we hope to have them finalized and released soon. For the last several years, Texas abortion data was typically finalized and published between March and June."
Minutes later, when NBC News followed up specifically to repeat claims that the data release was being intentionally delayed and employees were told to pretend they were not yet ready, the only answer was an out-of-office message.
The information could also potentially undermine Texas' rationale for the law, which is that it makes women safer............."
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