TRUST.

RESPECT.
ACCESS.

TRUST.

Trust. Respect. Access. is a multi-year campaign to promote policies that restore trust in Texans
to make their own reproductive health care decisions, respect for health care professionals
judgment about patient care, and access to the full range of reproductive health care in Texas.
Extremist politicians have gone too far in restricting reproductive health care, and today, a broad
coalition of organizations comes together to announce these first steps toward a better Texas.

Trust Texans to make their own reproductive health care decisions, including the
timing and spacing of their children.

Family planning, including contraception, has well-documented health benefits for

mothers of all ages and for their newborns, families and communities.1

Polling shows that an overwhelming majority of Texans agree that it is important for
students to get comprehensive, age-appropriate and medically-accurate sex education
that includes information on birth control as well as abstinence.2

A strong majority of Latino voters in Texas agree that a woman has a right to make her
own personal decisions about abortion without politicians interfering.3

Texas has one of the highest rates of teen births and repeat teen births in the nation. To
enable young people to prevent unintended pregnancy, Texas must increase access to
contraception, including allowing youth who are already mothers to access birth control
without parental consent. As it stands today, young parents who are charged with making
health care decisions for their children are unable to make decisions about birth control
for themselves.

Endorsed legislation: SB 88 (Sen. Ellis), HB 78 (Rep. M. Gonzalez), HB 468 (Rep. M. Gonzalez),

SB 468 (Sen. Rodriguez), HB 1351 (Rep. C. Turner), SB 297 & 300 (Sen. Watson), SB 707 (Sen.
Sylvia Garcia).

RESPECT.

Respect health care professionals medical and ethical judgment about the care
each patient needs.

Health care providers have a professional and ethical obligation to provide care that is
evidence-based, safe, individualized and medically appropriate.

Politicians should not substitute their judgment for that of health care professionals nor
interfere with the doctor-patient relationship.

The state-mandated statement in the so-called Womans Right to Know Act that
doctors are forced to read to patients inaccurately asserts that abortion increases risk of
breast cancer, a claim unsupported by any credible evidence.4

Laws such as mandatory ultrasounds, biased counseling, mandatory delays and

medically unnecessary restrictions on medication abortion are political interference
in medical decision-making, and, according to medical experts, do nothing to make
women safer.

Lawmakers should not force health care providers to choose between ignoring their
medical training and ethical obligations or violating the law.

Endorsed legislation: HB 708 (Rep. Farrar), HB 1210 (Rep. Howard)

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/CPSW-testimony.pdf
http://www.tfn.org/site/PageNavigator/issues_religious_freedom_2013poll.html
3
http://latinainstitute.org/sites/default/files/NLIRH%20Research%20Memo_Final%20%281%29.pdf
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ACCESS.

Guarantee access to safe, timely abortion care for all Texans.

Since Texas lawmakers enacted HB 2 in 2013, more than half of the states abortion
clinics have been forced to close because they were unable to comply with all of the new,
unnecessary regulations. If the law is fully implemented, there will be less than 10 abortion
clinics left to serve the entire state.5

Admitting privileges, ambulatory surgical center requirements, out-of-date medication

abortion requirements and other restrictions on abortion access do nothing to promote
womens health and safety and hurt Texas families by making it much more difficult to
access the care they need.

The mandatory 24-hour waiting periodbased on the widely discredited and demeaning
premise that women make the decision to have an abortion without reflectionputs an
extra burden on women who must take more time off work, incur the expense of extra
travel and be away from family longer than necessary.6

Laws that make it so difficult to access care disproportionately impact low-income Texans,
rural Texans, immigrant communities and Texans of color.7

Endorsed legislation: HB 709 (Rep. Farrar), SB 730 (Sen. Jose Rodriguez).

http://www.acog.org/Resources-And-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Gynecologic-Practice/Induced-Abortion-and-Breast-Cancer-Risk
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/orgs/txpep/_files/pdf/TxPEP%20HB2%20Fact%20Sheet%20Revision%20Jan.%208%202015.pdf
6
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/orgs/txpep/_files/pdf/TxPEP-ResearchBrief-ImpactofAbortionRestrictions.pdf
7
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/17/1/gpr170109.html
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