Abortion Clinics Are Already Seeing a Wave of Patients Fleeing Texas
The calls started pouring in from Texas even before the abortion ban took effect.
At the Trust Women abortion clinic in Oklahoma City, the phones have been ringing off the hook, as Texans faced the reality that, earlier this week, their state had enacted a law that would ban abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy. Callers aren't even sure how the law works, exactly. They wanted to know: “Do I have to keep this secret from other people?”
“If we wanted to know what things were going to look like if Roe fell, we’re getting a sneak peek,” said Rebecca Tong, co-executive director of Trust Women, in reference to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. “And it would be even more horrendous.” Tong is shocked that the United States is at this point—and yet, given how abortion access has been relentlessly attacked over the last decade, not all surprised.
Although it’s only officially been in effect for a few days, the impact of the Texas abortion ban has already started to reverberate beyond the state’s borders, as people who work for and with abortion clinics in the states surrounding Texas are scrambling to keep up with a surge of people fleeing the Lone Star State. Although some in-state clinics are still providing abortions to people whose pregnancies are less than six weeks along, at least 85 percent of Texas abortions take place after that benchmark.
Now, those patients will have to head out of state for help.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/4avew9/texas-abortion-law-clinic-patients-fleeing
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