SHUT UP: Texas Tries to Stop Doctors from Talking About Abortion

This week, the Texas Department of Health and Human Services sent out a letter explaining their proposed new rules for women's health care. The letter shows that Texas is expanding its ban on state funding for women's health care providers who provide abortion to include "promoters" of abortion.

The section also requires a TWHP provider to ensure that (1) outside the scope of TWHP, the provider does not perform or promote elective abortions and does not affiliate with an entity that performs or promotes elective abortions; and (2) within the scope of TWHP, the provider does not promote elective abortions, is physically separated from any abortion-providing or abortion-promoting entity, and does not operate under an identification mark that is registered to an entity thatperforms or promotes elective abortions.

As ThinkProgress explains, "banning 'promotion' "effectively means banning any women's health care provider who mentions the word abortion or has informational material about how a woman might be able to seek out the procedure." The rule bans doctors from referring to abortion as "within the continuum of family planning services," which means that to receive state funds, doctors cannot acknowledge that abortion exists.

This is outrageous. It is literally Texas putting the government between Americans and their doctors. Texans in favor of women's rights have already made big news by protesting the end of Texas' Women's Health Program, and will need to keep up the fight. It harmful to every woman in the state; every American has a right to full information about their medical decisions, and Texas is determined to deny them that right.There is no question: Texas's government is insane and utterly anti-choice.  Last week, Rick Perry announced Texas won't accept the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion - further harming women, as Texans on Medicaid are overwhelmingly female. This is a status quo that must change as soon as possible.

As the NAACP told Mitt Romney this week, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!