TX HB257

Expands exceptions to Texas abortion prohibitions to allow licensed physicians to perform abortions when medically indicated, necessary to preserve the patient's life, physical or mental health (including fertility), or when there is a lethal fetal anomaly or life-limiting diagnosis incompatible with life outside the womb without extraordinary medical interventions

Changes the standard from "reasonable medical judgment" to the "physician's best medical judgment" when determining whether an abortion exception applies

Prohibits medical review processes from overriding a determination made jointly by a physician and pregnant patient (or health care proxy) to perform an abortion under the permitted exceptions

Repeals Chapter 6-1/2, Title 71 of the Revised Statutes, which contains Texas's pre-Roe criminal abortion statute

Updates terminology throughout the law, replacing "female" with "patient," "unborn child" with "embryo or fetus," and expanding liability protection to "licensed health care providers" rather than just physicians for accidental or unintentional harm during treatment