AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas lawmakers advanced a bill Wednesday to clarify medical exceptions under one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the U.S., putting the GOP-backed proposal on the brink of reaching Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.
The changes would not expand abortion access in Texas or list specific medical exceptions under the state’s near-total ban, which took effect in 2022 and only allows for an abortion to save the life of the mother. It also would not include exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
But the proposal is still a pivot for Texas Republicans, who for years have defended the ban as written in the face of legal challenges and pleas for clarity from medical providers. Democrats, meanwhile, have called the bill a positive step but also faced criticism from some abortion-rights allies who raised doubts about what, if any, impact it will have.
The bill passed 129-6 and needs only a final procedural vote before reaching Abbott, who has signaled support for the measure. Lawmakers debated for nearly an hour as Republican state Rep. Charlie Geren, a co-author of the bill, fielded questions from several conservative legislators who expressed concerns that it would expand abortion access.
"We do not want women to die of medical emergencies during their pregnancies,” Geren said.
The bill would specify that doctors cannot face criminal charges for performing an abortion in a medical emergency that causes major bodily impairment. It also defines a “life-threatening” condition as one capable of causing death.
Similar near-total abortion bans across the country have faced numerous legal challenges and criticism from medical professionals who have said that medical exceptions are too vague.
Lawmakers in at least nine states with abortion bans have sought to change or clarify medical exceptions that allow doctors to perform an abortion if the mother's life is at risk since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
Supporters of these bills have said they have the potential to save lives. Critics, including some abortion rights groups, have questioned whether they make state abortion laws easier to understand.
In Kentucky, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear earlier this year vetoed a bill that GOP lawmakers touted as bringing clarity to that state’s near-total abortion ban, saying it would not protect pregnant women. Republican lawmakers later overrode his veto.
Last year, South Dakota released a video for physicians that outlined examples of acceptable medical emergencies that received criticism from abortion rights supporters for not being specific enough.
“I think these bills are trying to get at the reality that exceptions are really hard to comply with," said Kimya Forouzan, principal state policy adviser at the Guttmacher Institute.
Still, Texas Republican Sen. Bryan Hughes, an architect of the state's abortion ban, said the new bill's goal is to avoid confusion among doctors.
“One of the most important things we want to do is to make sure that doctors and hospitals and the hospital lawyers are trained on what the law is,” Hughes said.
In 2024, the Texas Supreme Court ruled against a group of women who say they were denied an abortion after experiencing serious pregnancy complications that threatened their lives and fertility. The court ruled that the state’s laws were clear in allowing doctors to perform an abortion to save the life of the mother.
Dr. Austin Dennard, a Dallas OB-GYN, was part of the lawsuit and testified how the state's near-total ban put her health at risk after her fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition. She eventually left Texas for an abortion.
Dennard’s feelings are mixed about the bill, which does not list specific medical conditions or include fatal fetal anomalies as exceptions.
“What is broadly now known among practicing physicians in Texas is that abortions are illegal,” said Dennard. “Undoing that broad understanding is going to be difficult.”
Texas’ efforts underscore the challenges abortion opponents have had to navigate regarding medical exceptions, said Mary Ziegler, a professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law and a historian of abortion politics in the U.S.
Judges have put enforcement of Utah’s abortion ban on hold in a case over exceptions, for example, and they struck down two Oklahoma bans over medical exceptions – though most abortions in that state remain illegal.
For abortion opponents, Ziegler said, it’s tricky to craft legislation that does two different things.
“Can you provide clear guidance as to when medical intervention is justified without providing physicians discretion to provide abortions they don’t think are emergencies?” Ziegler said.
Texas' ban prohibits nearly all abortions, except to save the life of the mother, and doctors can be fined up to $100,000 and face up to 99 years in prison if convicted of performing an abortion illegally.
On Wednesday, the House passed a bill that prohibits Texas municipalities from providing individuals resources to access an abortion outside of the state.
Texas Republicans are also advancing efforts to make it a civil offense to mail, deliver or manufacture abortion pills, expanding on a 2021 law that allows private individuals to sue others whom they suspect are helping a woman obtain an abortion.
Attorney General Ken Paxton's office has filed criminal charges against a midwife for allegedly providing illegal abortions and is also suing a New York doctor for prescribing abortion pills to a Texas woman.
Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
Lathan is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Dr. Austin Dennard holds her son as she poses for a portrait at her home in Dallas, Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Dr. Austin Dennard poses for a portrait at her home in Dallas, Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Dr. Austin Dennard holds her son as she poses for a portrait at her home in Dallas, Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has affixed partisan plaques to the portraits of all U.S. commanders in chief, himself included, on his Presidential Walk of Fame at the White House, describing Joe Biden as “sleepy,” Barack Obama as “divisive” and Ronald Reagan as a fan of a young Trump.
The additions, first seen publicly Wednesday, mark Trump's latest effort to remake the White House in his own image, while flouting the protocols of how presidents treat their predecessors and doubling down on his determination to reshape how U.S. history is told.
“The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement describing the installation in the colonnade that runs from the West Wing to the residence. “As a student of history, many were written directly by the President himself.”
Indeed, the Trumpian flourishes include the president’s typical bombastic language and haphazard capitalization. They also highlight Trump's fraught relationships with his more recent predecessors.
An introductory plaque tells passersby that the exhibit was “conceived, built, and dedicated by President Donald J. Trump as a tribute to past Presidents, good, bad, and somewhere in the middle.”
Besides the Walk of Fame and its new plaques, Trump has adorned the Oval Office in gold and razed the East Wing in preparation for a massive ballroom. Separately, his administration has pushed for an examination of how Smithsonian exhibits present the nation’s history, and he is playing a strong hand in how the federal government will recognize the nation's 250th anniversary in 2026.
Here's a look at how Trump's colonnade exhibit tells the presidential story.
Joe Biden is still the only president in the display not to be recognized with a gilded portrait. Instead, Trump chose an autopen, reflecting his mockery of Biden’s age and assertions that Biden was not up to the job.
Biden, who defeated Trump in the 2020 election and dropped out of the 2024 election before their pending rematch, is introduced as “Sleepy Joe” and “by far, the worst President in American History” who “brought our Nation to the brink of destruction.”
Two plaques blast Biden for inflation and his energy and immigration policy, among other things. The text also blames Biden for Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and asserts falsely that Biden was elected fraudulently.
Biden’s post-White House office had no comment on his plaque.
The 44th president is described as “a community organizer, one term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History."
The plaque calls Obama's signature domestic achievement “the highly ineffective ‘Unaffordable Care Act."
And it notes that Trump nixed other major Obama achievements: “the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal ... and ”the one-side Paris Climate Accords."
An aide to Obama also declined comment.
George W. Bush, who notably did not speak to Trump when they were last together at former President Jimmy Carter's funeral, appears to win approval for creating the Department of Homeland Security and leading the nation after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But the plaque decries that Bush “started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which should not have happened.”
An aide to Bush didn’t return a message seeking comment.
The 42nd president, once a friend of Trump's, gets faint praise for major crime legislation, an overhaul of the social safety net and balanced budgets.
But his plaque notes Clinton secured those achievements with a Republican Congress, the help of the 1990s “tech boom” and “despite the scandals that plagued his Presidency.”
Clinton's recognition describes the North American Free Trade Agreement, another of his major achievements, as “bad for the United States” and something Trump would “terminate” during his first presidency. (Trump actually renegotiated some terms with Mexico and Canada but did not scrap the fundamental deal.)
His plaque ends with the line: “In 2016, President Clinton's wife, Hillary, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump!”
An aide to Clinton did not return a message seeking comment.
The broadsides dissipate the further back into history the plaques go.
Republican George H.W. Bush, who died during Trump's first term, is recognized for his lengthy resume before becoming president, along with legislation including the Clean Air Act and Americans With Disabilities Act — despite Trump's administration relaxing enforcement of both. The elder Bush's plaque does not note that he, not Clinton, first pushed the major trade law that became NAFTA.
Lyndon Johnson’s plaque credits the Texas Democrat for securing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 (seminal laws that Trump’s administration interprets differently than previous administrations). It correctly notes that discontent over Vietnam led to LBJ not seeking reelection in 1968.
Democrat John F. Kennedy, the uncle of Trump's health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is credited as a World War II “war hero” who later used “stirring rhetoric” as president in opposition to communism.
Republican Richard Nixon’s plaque states plainly that the Watergate scandal led to his resignation.
While Trump spared most deceased presidents of harsh criticism, he jabbed at one of his regular targets, the media — this time across multiple centuries: Andrew Jackson’s plaque says the seventh president was “unjustifiably treated unfairly by the Press, but not as viciously and unfairly as President Abraham Lincoln and President Donald J. Trump would, in the future, be.”
With two presidencies, Trump gets two displays. Each is full of praise and superlatives — “the Greatest Economy in the History of the World.” He calls his 2016 Electoral College margin of 304-227 a “landslide.”
Trump's second-term plaque notes his popular vote victory — something he did not achieve in 2016 — and concludes with “THE BEST IS YET TO COME.”
Meanwhile, the introductory plaque presumes Trump’s addition will be a White House fixture once he is no longer president: “The Presidential Walk of Fame will long live as a testament and tribute to the Greatness of America.”
Barrow reported from Atlanta.
New plaques of explanatory text have been placed underneath presidential portraits on the Colonnade at the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
New plaques of explanatory text have been placed underneath presidential portraits on the Colonnade at the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
New plaques of explanatory text have been placed underneath presidential portraits on the Colonnade at the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
New plaques of explanatory text are seen beneath a framed portrait in the space for former President Joe Biden on the Presidential Walk of Fame on the Colonnade of the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
New plaques of explanatory text have been placed underneath presidential portraits on the Colonnade at the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
