Andrea Grimes holds a master’s degree in cultural anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin, and her investigative work has also been published in the Texas Observer, Dallas Observer, D magazine and the Austin Chronicle. A native Texan and avid Twitterer, Andrea lives in Austin with her husband and two cats.
The three-day San Francisco event focused on making it easier for abortion providers, abortion funders, and patients to connect with each other, despite a political climate that remains hostile to legal abortion access.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he will seek to "eliminate and criminalize any sale or transaction of fetal tissue by an abortion clinic for any purpose whatsoever" as part of a his response to widely discredited videos targeting Planned Parenthood.
The Texas Department of State Health Services has been ordered to "cease and desist" in its attempt to block the reopening of a legal abortion provider in El Paso, according to federal court documents.
On August 18, 2014, the Taco or Beer Challenge, a month-long celebration of reproductive freedom, became manifest in the world. The challenge is incredibly simple: You eat a taco or you drink a beer, and you donate to an abortion fund. Last year, we raised $30,000—let's see if we can do it again.
States across the country continue to reduce their public investment in education. With that in mind, Democratic presidential candidates are tackling the question of how to make college affordable (again) for American students.
Carson told the Washington Post that his "intent" made his research acceptable, and that his opposition is to "killing babies and taking the tissue, that’s a very different thing than taking a dead specimen and keeping a record of it."
The report, part of NLIRH and CRR's Nuestro Texas series, details lawmakers' efforts to reduce access to reproductive cancer screenings, increase restrictions on abortion care for immigrant Texans and minors, and further militarize the border.
A three-judge panel on the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that part of the state's restrictive voter identification law violates a remaining provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, saying Texas' SB 14 has the effect of "disparately impacting minority voters."
Guest blogger Andrea Grimes GIF-splains efforts by the so-called Center for Medical Progress to goad Planned Parenthood into not doing any of the not-illegal things it has not-illegally not-done.
The top law enforcement official in Texas turned himself into police on Monday to be booked on three felony counts, including two counts of first-degree securities fraud for offenses involving more than $100,000 each.
A coalition of Texas groups have come together this summer to launch two new efforts intended to help residents access legal abortion care and to communicate more broadly about Texans' families, their lives, and their reproductive decisions.
Texas lawmakers spent four-and-a-half hours “investigating” whether an entity that does not provide the legal service of fetal tissue donation has violated any laws while it doesn’t provide that legal service.
About 150 people attended the rally, held the day before a Texas senate committee is set to hear testimony concerning fetal tissue collection for medical research at Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates.
A group of Texas parents say the state has wrongfully denied their children birth certificates and therefore discriminated against those kids because of their parents' immigration status.
A watchdog group has asked the California attorney general to investigate whether the anti-choice group that posed as a non-existent medical research entity violated California law "by making false or misleading solicitations for charitable donations."
The phrases being thrown around by conservative legislators and organizations aren't medical terms. They're intentionally deceptive bits of propaganda, and they create an anti-choice political frame for conversations about abortion care that are not rooted in sound science and medicine.
Texas Attorney General and noted violator of state securities law Ken Paxton announced Wednesday that his office has launched "an official investigation into Planned Parenthood" after the release of a heavily edited video showing the organization's senior medical director talking about fetal tissue donations for research.
I still believe that all people deserve access to the comprehensive reproductive health care that is right for them and their families, regardless of the edited videos being released by anti-choice organizations.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania analyzed claims data from a nationwide provider of private insurance, and found that on average, contraceptive pill and IUD users spent 20 percent less out-of-pocket on their chosen family planning methods post-ACA.
Too many men, I fear, do not know what the face of a joyfully turned-on woman looks like. Moreover, too many men do not care. Perhaps these men have been told, too many times over by too many stories, that their own desire is paramount. For this reason, men must see this movie.
Texas’ anti-choice lawmakers—almost all Republicans, joined by a few Democrats—have spent the last decade and a half or so chipping away abortion access in the state. Yet every session, we're told to be thankful something more restrictive didn't make it to the governor's desk.
HB 2 bans abortion after 20 weeks, limits the prescription of medication abortion, requires abortion-providing doctors to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, and requires facilities that provide abortion care to operate as ambulatory surgical centers.
It would be difficult to imagine a 2015 session that could have rivaled the 2013 special summer session in terms of restrictions. But dangerous bills did get traction this year—and some made their way into law.
Reproductive rights supporters have braved the crushing heat to join one dedicated 20-year-old Texan in her public call for Gov. Greg Abbott to reject lawmakers' decision to cut Planned Parenthood out of the state's Breast and Cervical Cancer Screenings program.
On Wednesday morning, Texas abortion providers took one step closer to taking their case against the state's omnibus anti-abortion law, HB 2, to the Supreme Court.
Two years after Texas lawmakers passed omnibus anti-abortion law HB 2, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the most restrictive provisions of HB 2 can go into effect.
I wouldn't say that I dislike the Duggar family because they have "standards," contrary to what Texas state Rep. Bill Zedler (R-Arlington) tweeted on Wednesday night.
Days before the Texas legislature adjourned for the year, anti-choice lawmakers made it a priority to make it harder for the most vulnerable minors who have unplanned pregnancies to get legal abortion care in the state. But the bill's proposal and passage didn't go unnoticed.
The Texas legislature approved two measures on Friday that will make it harder for some of the most marginalized Texans to access cancer treatment and legal abortion care.
Sine die—the official end of the regular legislative session—here in Texas is set for Monday, and if the fates are willing, we won't be facing a special legislative session. That would mean another cruel start to the summer for Texans who believe in freedom and progress and justice
Amy Hagstrom Miller and Amanda Williams at ChoiceWorks speak about their vision for their new nonprofit Shift, why they’ve chosen to launch in Texas, and what the end of abortion stigma might look like in red states.
Anti-choice legislators, following days of infighting between mainstream Texas Republican lawmakers and Tea Partiers, missed a key Tuesday night deadline to approve a bill that would have banned abortion care coverage in insurance plans purchased under the Affordable Care Act.
On Memorial Day 2015, the Texas Senate passed an anti-abortion bill that would make it far harder for abused, abandoned, and neglected minors who rely on “judicial bypass” to obtain an abortion. The bill would also require doctors who provide abortion care to demand government ID from their patients.
State conservatives volleyed their constituents' access to reproductive health care back and forth on Sunday in a series of last-minute deals, ultimately resulting in a late-night vote, taken without Democrats and moderate Republicans, to reopen debate on a bill that would ban insurance coverage for legal abortion.
"Jane" could only assume, from the debates held in the state legislature over the past several weeks, that since anti-choice lawmakers apparently believe they're in the best position to tell Texans whether they can, or should, access legal abortion care, "Jane" would just go straight to the source.
Republicans want abortion providers to assume every patient is underage unless the patient can present an unspecified "valid governmental ID," which could end legal abortion care for undocumented Texans.
I can't help but feel frustrated that no matter what deals our progressive lawmakers strike, someone's getting thrown under the bus—and, so often, that someone is a Texan who has the least political power, the fewest economic resources, the lowest level of socio-cultural capital.
The Texas house voted to pass a bill requiring physicians who provide abortion care to assume that every one of their patients is younger than 18 unless those patients can present "valid government record of identification" showing otherwise.
More than half of Texans who were surveyed in a new university study said that they have faced at least one barrier to accessing cervical cancer screenings, family planning care, or other reproductive health services.
Lois Kolkhorst, a Republican state senator from Brenham, says she "has a fundamental respect for human life, from conception until natural death." Yet just last week, she voted against a bill that would help teachers have break times and dedicated areas to pump breast milk to feed babies.
Austin ranks high on lists of "family-friendly" American cities, but according a new report, its "family-friendly" benefits are primarily enjoyed by white Austinites—a group which makes up the minority of total Austin residents.
Texas' GOP-dominated House of Representatives on Thursday gave its final approval to a bill that would require people who work or volunteer for Texas' few remaining abortion facilities, and who have "direct contact with patients," to take a state-mandated training course on human trafficking.
A new survey of likely Texas voters shows that a majority believe that discrimination against LGBT Texans is either a "major" or a "minor" problem and that they would support a state law protecting LGBT Texans from employment discrimination.
In a vote split along party lines, the Texas Senate on Tuesday voted to ban insurance coverage for abortion care in both private and public insurance plans.
There are 30 days left in the regular session and a total of 32 filed bills dealing with the subject of abortion—most, but not all, of which would make comprehensive reproductive health care more costly and difficult to access.
The bill requires abortion providers to place large signs about trafficking and "coercion," in English and in Spanish, in public and private areas of their clinics.
Here's a man who is saying that people who are carrying wanted, but unsustainable, pregnancies must be compelled by the state to carry their fetuses to term because they, and we, are sinners.
A Texas Democrat on Thursday called this year's state legislature the most misogynistic she's seen in her 21 years as a state representative, following a house vote that would have ended legal abortion care for pregnant Texans whose fetuses have medical anomalies that aren't survivable outside the womb.
A few weeks ago, I experienced an Internet first: a troll genuinely apologized to me for his behavior. What happened? I called him out by calling in his family members and his peers. By treating him like a human being, instead of an insult machine with a keyboard and Internet access.
Earlier this week I listened to my fellow Texans boast about how their innate Texanness somehow demands that they vocally support a thing called "Confederate Heroes Day," a state holiday that occasionally falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
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