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A Texas bill that would restrict insurance coverage for abortions was approved by the state's Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Wednesday, a move critics called cruel and damaging to women's health.
The House measure would ban insurance coverage for abortions and require women who wanted coverage to purchase a supplemental plan for an abortion, the latest effort by the most-populous Republican-controlled state to place restrictions on the procedure.
The Republican-dominated Senate has passed a similar bill, and Republican Governor Greg Abbott has shown support for the measures.
The bill's backers say it would protect abortion opponents from subsidizing the procedure. A Democratic critic decried it as forcing people to buy "rape insurance."
"It's a question of economic freedom and freedom in general," Republican Representative John Smithee, the bill's sponsor, said in House debate on Tuesday ahead of the bill receiving preliminary approval.
The Republican sponsor of the Senate bill, Brandon Creighton, has told local media supplemental coverage would cost $12 to $80 a year.
Idaho, Kansas and Oklahoma are among the 10 other states that make abortion coverage a supplement on private plans. There are 25 states with restrictions on abortion coverage in plans set up by state exchanges as part of the Affordable Care Act under former Democratic President Barack Obama, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks such legislation.