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| Texas women got a reprieve from the state's anti-abortion law. It might not last | Texas women got a reprieve from the state's anti-abortion law. It might not last |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| Until I exhaled on Monday, I hadn’t realized that I had been holding my breath. | Until I exhaled on Monday, I hadn’t realized that I had been holding my breath. |
| Like so many people, I spent part of my weekend tearing up as I looked at post after post on social media of committed, loving partners’ marriage photos with a renewed sense of hope that sometimes, “right” actually wins – but then there was the fitful sleep of Sunday night because, still pending before the US supreme court, was a case that would have meant the closure of almost all of Texas remaining reproductive health clinics. | |
| Related: US supreme court refuses to let Texas close 10 abortion clinics | Related: US supreme court refuses to let Texas close 10 abortion clinics |
| The supreme court had to decide whether the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision to allow the full enforcement of HB2 – Texas’ sweeping anti-abortion law – could stand pending the final outcome of appeals in the case. If they sided with the lower court, it would have forced all but nine of the original 41 clinics in the state to close as of 1 July. With Monday’s stay of the circuit court’s ruling came reason to breath ... if only for a little while. | The supreme court had to decide whether the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision to allow the full enforcement of HB2 – Texas’ sweeping anti-abortion law – could stand pending the final outcome of appeals in the case. If they sided with the lower court, it would have forced all but nine of the original 41 clinics in the state to close as of 1 July. With Monday’s stay of the circuit court’s ruling came reason to breath ... if only for a little while. |
| But hundreds of thousands of Texas women await two more decisions in the case: whether the US supreme court will hear the appeal and, if it does, whether it will strike down the challenged provisions of HB2. Reading the supreme court’s majority opinion in the Obergefell same sex marriage case issued on Friday, I feel reason to hope: its findings, rooted in the concepts of equal protection and individual autonomy, ought to extend to reproductive rights as well. | But hundreds of thousands of Texas women await two more decisions in the case: whether the US supreme court will hear the appeal and, if it does, whether it will strike down the challenged provisions of HB2. Reading the supreme court’s majority opinion in the Obergefell same sex marriage case issued on Friday, I feel reason to hope: its findings, rooted in the concepts of equal protection and individual autonomy, ought to extend to reproductive rights as well. |
| Notably, as Jenny Kutner pointed out in Salon, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in the same sex marriage case specifically references “choices concerning contraception, family relationships, procreation, and childrearing” as individual autonomies that are protected by the US constitution. | Notably, as Jenny Kutner pointed out in Salon, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in the same sex marriage case specifically references “choices concerning contraception, family relationships, procreation, and childrearing” as individual autonomies that are protected by the US constitution. |
| And there is further hope for women in the majority opinion’s discussion of comparable access to the protections afforded all Americans by the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Were the supreme court to eventually allow the lower court’s decision to stand, not only would there be a constitutionally unacceptable intrusion on women’s personal autonomy, but many women of Texas would be left without the same protections afforded to other Texas women. | And there is further hope for women in the majority opinion’s discussion of comparable access to the protections afforded all Americans by the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. Were the supreme court to eventually allow the lower court’s decision to stand, not only would there be a constitutionally unacceptable intrusion on women’s personal autonomy, but many women of Texas would be left without the same protections afforded to other Texas women. |
| Let’s face it: as long as there is a constitutionally protected right to abortion, women of means will be able to exercise it because they won’t have to worry about how far they need to travel, the waiting periods, getting time off of work, losing wages or the threat of losing a needed job. But in Texas, women of lesser means will have to face all of those hurdles to access abortion care if the law goes into effect. Using the ruse that they are concerned about protecting women’s health, Texas lawmakers will have endangered scores of them. | Let’s face it: as long as there is a constitutionally protected right to abortion, women of means will be able to exercise it because they won’t have to worry about how far they need to travel, the waiting periods, getting time off of work, losing wages or the threat of losing a needed job. But in Texas, women of lesser means will have to face all of those hurdles to access abortion care if the law goes into effect. Using the ruse that they are concerned about protecting women’s health, Texas lawmakers will have endangered scores of them. |
| Related: The biggest US city without an abortion clinic: El Paso's sole facility faces closure | Related: The biggest US city without an abortion clinic: El Paso's sole facility faces closure |
| Failure to overturn the Texas law will leave all of the 5.4m women of reproductive age in Texas with only 9 health centers that provide safe legal abortion in the entire state – and approximately 900,000 of those women will likely live more than 150 miles from the nearest reproductive health center. Women in El Paso will have to cross the border to New Mexico to access care, since the closest Texas provider will be 550 miles away. For many of those that can make it to a center that will still perform abortions, they will have to also pay to stay overnight somewhere nearby, because they’ll have had to travel too far to simply drive home and return the next day – which is the requirement already in place as a result of the state’s mandatory sonogram and 24-hour waiting period requirements. | Failure to overturn the Texas law will leave all of the 5.4m women of reproductive age in Texas with only 9 health centers that provide safe legal abortion in the entire state – and approximately 900,000 of those women will likely live more than 150 miles from the nearest reproductive health center. Women in El Paso will have to cross the border to New Mexico to access care, since the closest Texas provider will be 550 miles away. For many of those that can make it to a center that will still perform abortions, they will have to also pay to stay overnight somewhere nearby, because they’ll have had to travel too far to simply drive home and return the next day – which is the requirement already in place as a result of the state’s mandatory sonogram and 24-hour waiting period requirements. |
| The inability for women to travel great distances or to afford overnight stays and at least two days off of work will mean that many of them will be precluded – simply because of financial constraints – from exercising what should be their constitutionally-protected rights if the Texas law is allowed to go into full effect. These women will have to choose between less safe means of having an abortion or carrying an unplanned pregnancy to term. Lawmakers who force this Hobson’s choice on women will sit smug in their self-righteousness. But they’ll have left the real question unanswered: how will the children of women who had no choice but to have them be clothed, fed and educated if their mothers are trapped in poverty? | The inability for women to travel great distances or to afford overnight stays and at least two days off of work will mean that many of them will be precluded – simply because of financial constraints – from exercising what should be their constitutionally-protected rights if the Texas law is allowed to go into full effect. These women will have to choose between less safe means of having an abortion or carrying an unplanned pregnancy to term. Lawmakers who force this Hobson’s choice on women will sit smug in their self-righteousness. But they’ll have left the real question unanswered: how will the children of women who had no choice but to have them be clothed, fed and educated if their mothers are trapped in poverty? |
| It ought not be the case that the constitution protects a certain class of women, but leaves others behind in the dust. The extension of such an injustice would interfere with a whole host of productive rights for women that we all should be concerned with protecting. If a woman cannot control her reproductive destiny, she cannot control her economic destiny. It is just that simple. | It ought not be the case that the constitution protects a certain class of women, but leaves others behind in the dust. The extension of such an injustice would interfere with a whole host of productive rights for women that we all should be concerned with protecting. If a woman cannot control her reproductive destiny, she cannot control her economic destiny. It is just that simple. |
| I am a living, breathing example of the ladders that can be climbed when reproductive autonomy forms the first rung. Had it not been for contraceptive care provided to me at a Planned Parenthood clinic near my home when I was a young, struggling single mom, it is likely I would never have escaped poverty. I think about that a lot – about the “shoes” I wore then, and about the pink sneakers that I donned to fight for other women’s ability to access safe reproductive healthcare when I filibustered the sweeping anti-abortion bill in the Texas Senate. I think about putting myself in their shoes now. | I am a living, breathing example of the ladders that can be climbed when reproductive autonomy forms the first rung. Had it not been for contraceptive care provided to me at a Planned Parenthood clinic near my home when I was a young, struggling single mom, it is likely I would never have escaped poverty. I think about that a lot – about the “shoes” I wore then, and about the pink sneakers that I donned to fight for other women’s ability to access safe reproductive healthcare when I filibustered the sweeping anti-abortion bill in the Texas Senate. I think about putting myself in their shoes now. |
| For a few months during the US supreme court’s interim, I’ll breathe easier for the women of Texas. But come October, I – like so many other women in my state – will be holding my breath yet again. | For a few months during the US supreme court’s interim, I’ll breathe easier for the women of Texas. But come October, I – like so many other women in my state – will be holding my breath yet again. |
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