| (a) Governing rules. This subchapter sets out rules
governing the administration of the Healthy Texas Women program (HTW).
(b) Authority. This subchapter is authorized generally
by Texas Government Code §531.0201(a)(2)(C), which transfers
client services functions performed by the Texas Department of State
Health Services to HHSC, and Texas Government Code §531.0204,
which requires the HHSC Executive Commissioner to develop a transition
plan which includes an outline of HHSC's reorganized structure and
a definition of client services functions.
(c) Objectives. HTW is established to achieve the following
overarching objectives:
(1) to increase access to women's health and family
planning services to:
(A) avert unintended pregnancies;
(B) positively affect the outcome of future pregnancies;
and
(C) positively impact the health and wellbeing of women
and their families;
(2) to implement the state policy to favor childbirth
and family planning services that do not include elective abortion
or the promotion of elective abortion within the continuum of care
or services;
(3) to ensure the efficient and effective use of state
funds in support of these objectives and to avoid the direct or indirect
use of state funds to promote or support elective abortion;
(4) to reduce the overall cost of publicly-funded health
care (including federally-funded health care) by providing low-income
Texans access to safe, effective services that are consistent with
these objectives; and
(5) to enforce Texas Human Resources Code §32.024(c-1)
and any other state law that regulates the delivery of non-federally
funded family planning services, to the extent permitted by the Constitution
of the United States.
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