Bill targeting abortion pills misses key deadline
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
/2025/05/28/1748448336903.gif?w=3840)
Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios
An effort to limit abortion pills in Texas appears to have died in the Legislature.
Why it matters: Abortion is already illegal in Texas, but Republicans this session turned their attention to medication abortion, which accounts for most abortions performed in the U.S.
Driving the news: Senate Bill 2880 — a sweeping measure that allows lawsuits against those mailing, delivering, manufacturing or distributing abortion bills — sailed through the Senate last month, but did not receive a vote in the House before a key deadline.
- Senate bills must have received a vote in the House by Tuesday to move to Gov. Greg Abbott's desk. The legislative session ends Monday.
Yes, but: It's not over 'til it's over. Measures can be resurrected at the last minute through amendments.
What they're saying: "This is a significant failure from the House," Texas Right to Life president John Seago told the Texas Tribune. "When you look at the opportunity this bill had, it seems like there was a deliberate effort to slow the bill down, if not to kill it."
Zoom in: More than three dozen Republicans signed a letter last week urging the House State Affairs Committee to vote on the bill so that it could move to the full chamber.
- The committee approved the measure, but too late in the legislative process to make it to the House floor before the clock ran out.
The big picture: The Legislature has moved along several other abortion-related bills.
- SB 31, aimed at clarifying Texas' abortion ban, which includes an exception that allows doctors to terminate a pregnancy to save the pregnant person's life, is awaiting a signature by Abbott.
- SB 33, which bans a city from using taxpayer money to pay for abortion-related expenses, also awaits the governor's signature. Both Austin and San Antonio have approved spending money to support people traveling for abortions out of state.
The other side: "SB 31 doesn't undo the harm of the state's abortion ban, and it never could. No amount of 'clarification' can fix a fundamentally unjust law," Blair Wallace, policy and advocacy strategist for reproductive rights at the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement on the passage of SB 31.