PRESS RELEASE
May 25, 2015
For media interviews, contact:
Tina Hester, (512) 450-4899
Susan Hays, (214) 557-4819
Senate Approves Onerous Judicial Bypass Bill Targeting Abused and Neglected Teens;
Jane’s Due Process considers legal action if signed by Governor Abbott
The Texas Senate approved HB 3994 (Morrison), an omnibus bill that would dismantle current judicial bypass law and place additional restrictions on young women seeking access to the courts.
“The bill is rife with constitutional problems. As written it invites a lawsuit against the state – even while the litigation on HB 2 has not yet finished,” said Susan Hays, Jane’s Due Process legal director. Jane’s Due Process, is a non-profit organization that provides free legal representation for pregnant teens in Texas, including referring them to attorneys to represent them in bypass applications.
On rare occasions, a pregnant minor seeks access to the courts through the judicial bypass process. She may apply for a judicial bypass as an alternative to involving a parent or legal guardian in her decision to have an abortion. Many teens turn to the courts because their parents have died, been deported, are incarcerated or drug-addicted.
HB 3994 requires minors to file in their home county unless it has a population under 10,000. In those instances, the minor is permitted to file in the county where she will have her procedure or a neighboring county. There are 169 counties in Texas with populations over 10,000, including almost every county in East Texas. The bill also removes a provision that if a court does not rule by the deadline, the bypass is “deemed granted.” A deadline without enforcement allows the court system to stall a minor out until she can no longer obtain a legal abortion and is, in effect, a deemed denial of the bypass.
“For many teens, this would make judicial bypass entirely unattainable,” says Tina Hester, executive director of Jane’s Due Process. “The judicial bypass is in place to protect abused and neglected pregnant teens who cannot safely turn to a parent or cannot find a parent. When a minor is forced to go to her local courthouse in rural communities her confidentiality is near impossible to protect.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a judicial bypass be confidential, expeditious, and an effective opportunity for an abortion to be obtained. But a recent survey by Jane’s Due Process found that 81% of the counties contacted did not have immediate knowledge of the judicial bypass process and 37% of the counties denied entirely their office’s involvement with the filings. In rural counties that refusal percent hit 58%.
“Most cruel is the bill’s elimination of the physical, sexual, or emotional abuse ground for a bypass, and dropping consideration of emotional abuse entirely,” says Hays. “Proponents of this bill apparently think it is acceptable for a parent to abandon, disown or otherwise emotionally abuse a pregnant teenager.”
