WASHINGTON, D.C. — Samantha Casiano was escorted out of U.S. Representative Morgan Luttrell's Capitol Hill office in June 2026 after recounting her personal story to a staffer. The visit occurred during protests marking the fourth anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision.

During the meeting, Casiano shared a photograph of her daughter, Halo, with the staffer for Luttrell, a Republican from Magnolia. Halo was born without a fully formed skull and brain, a fetal anomaly that Casiano's OB-GYN identified as incompatible with life during her 20th week of pregnancy. Halo died four hours after birth. A staffer informed Casiano that the office maintained a pro-life stance. Casiano was escorted out minutes after speaking with the staffer.

Casiano traveled to Washington with Free & Just, a national nonprofit established after the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the constitutional right to abortion. This marked her second time participating in an "Abortion Stories on the Hill" campaign; women also traveled to the Capitol in June 2025 with the organization. "I made sure to look the staffers in their eyes and let them know who I was," Casiano said.

Texas lawmakers passed Senate Bill 31 in 2025, a measure known as the Life of the Mother Act. The bill requires doctors to apply reasonable medical judgment in emergencies involving a patient's life or severe harm, clarifying that a medical crisis does not need to be imminent for healthcare providers to act. The legislation also specifies that a doctor can only be charged if the state can demonstrate that no reasonable medical professional would have made the same decision. John Seago, President of Texas Right to Life, an organization that contributed to the crafting of both Texas' abortion bans and Senate Bill 31, said, "We passed Senate Bill 31 last session to require education of physicians on this topic, because we want the message to be very clear that whenever there's a serious situation like an ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage, there is no hesitation, that doctors are supposed to serve those women and help them immediately." Seago added, "[If] the attorney at the hospital misrepresented the law, that's just malpractice."

Some Republican lawmakers express interest in addressing federal policies concerning abortion pills, such as mifepristone. This drug accounts for nearly two-thirds of abortions nationwide. Kaitlyn Kash, who joined a 2023 lawsuit challenging Texas' restrictive medical exceptions to its abortion bans, has spent the last three Dobbs anniversaries on Capitol Hill. Senate Bill 31 also mandates that the Texas Medical Board create training programs for doctors who perform obstetrics care.