Legislative Activities

The heart of WHFPT lies in advocating for responsible reproductive health policies in Texas. WHFPT is well-known to members of the Texas Legislature, and the WHFPT staff has built strong relationships with legislators, staff members, and government officials who are friendly to family planning and reproductive freedom. These relationships ensure that whenever a reproductive health care issue arises in the legislature, WHFPT will be asked to supply information, witnesses and questions for public hearings and committee meetings.

During the Texas Legislature’s biennial sessions, WHFPT visits and speaks with legislators on all sides of the issues. We educate senators, representatives and their staff members on our issues and their importance to the health of Texas families.

WHFPT has been actively involved in increasing and protecting public funding for family planning services since 1981. Prior to the biennial meetings of the Texas Legislature, WHFPT prepares materials for the Texas Department of Health (TDH), legislators and staffs on the number of women in need of family planning services, the cost-benefits of subsidized preventive care and the scope of a family planning visit. At the beginning of the budgeting process, we work closely with the Texas Department of Health to identify critical funding needs. Once TDH has made its budget requests, we follow up with the heads of the funding committees and the legislative budgeting board to ensure that family planning and reproductive health care services remain in the TDH budget and are funded at acceptable levels.

Members of the Texas Legislature ask WHFPT to provide information and data on family planning, questions to ask in public hearings and witnesses to testify in support of funding for women’s health care. When family planning funding comes under attack, WHFPT helps legislators counter opposition with reliable information on the benefits of family planning and reproductive health care. WHFPT’s efforts have been instrumental in more than doubling funding for family planning services in Texas over the last twenty years.

WHFPT has been the lead organization in preventing the passage of more than 100 bills to restrict or eliminate access to abortion services. In 1997 and 1999, WHFPT’s Executive Director Peggy Romberg was invited to comment on proposed legislation mandating parental notification for minors seeking abortion. Ms. Romberg made suggestions and assisted in drafting language to mitigate the dangers posed to teens by these mandatory parental involvement laws. Additionally, WHFPT provided expert witnesses to testify about the effects of such laws in other states. Ms. Romberg has also written other compromise legislation on reproductive freedom issues that succeeded in becoming law.