It’s a not-too-encouraging new twist on the old baseball adage: win some, lose some, some get rained out.
Women’s health & rights recently won one – Albuquerque – lost one – Texas – and guess who still gets left out? The woman (and often her husband or partner) who simply wants to exercise a constitutional right to make a very personal, very private and usually very difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy.
The Albuquerque issue was a blatant attempt by right-wing ideologues to circumvent the law and ban late-term abortions outright. It would have immediately affected the entire state, since the only two clinics (and specifically the openly-advertising Southwestern Women’s Options) performing the procedure are in Albuquerque. Although late-term abortions are a tiny, tiny fraction of all such procedures, they are often the most wrenching, difficult and extremely private of decisions; for now, New Mexico women at least retain the right to make such decisions when necessary — and the access needed to carry them out.
Texas women fared worse. The Supreme Court turned down an appeal to block another blatantly anti-women law passed by Texas in July, which will force the immediate closing of as many as one third of the clinics in the state offering abortions.
Texas Governor Rick Perry proudly proclaimed that this means Texas women “are now better protected from shoddy abortion providers operating in dangerous conditions.” Excuse me? If I could get Mr. Perry to read my own story in Perilous Times, he might know what shoddy abortion providers operating in dangerous conditions are actually like. Tragically, because they are now denied access to safe and legal procedures, Texas women without resources may be forced to turn in similar directions.
Highly trained, dedicated physicians have been available to perform abortions in Texas clinics. Whether they have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of the clinic — as is now required — has absolutely no bearing on “the safety of Texas women.” But the law now enables one harsh, strident, anti-women segment of the state to impose its will on disempowered women. All but a handful of clinics in Texas will be forced either to close or to stop offering abortions. Some Texas women will be able to travel the long distances necessary to access safe procedures but others — women without money or power, desperate to end an unwanted pregnancy that could bring lead to unbearable hardship?
They not only lost one, they are now left out. My heart aches for those women.