TX Observer: “Passed by the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature this Spring and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in May, SB 8 forbids abortion care once embryonic cardiac activity is detected, which is typically around six weeks, and offers no exception for rape or incest. Since the overwhelming majority of pregnant people don’t realize they are pregnant this early or seek care before six weeks’ gestation, the law has amounted to a near-total ban on abortion in the second largest state in the country. The law also allows any private citizen to sue an abortion provider or someone who “aids or abets” the procedure and awards them a $10,000 bounty if they prevail in court. SB 8 is considered the most restrictive abortion law since before Roe v Wade, which has protected the right to abortion care since 1973.
In effect for more than two months thanks to the inaction of the Supreme Court, SB 8 has had devastating effects on women seeking reproductive health care in Texas—a state in which abortion care was already difficult to access due to a maze of state-imposed barriers.
Now, an “eerie quiet” has fallen over the Whole Woman’s Health clinics.
“We were flooded with calls when the law first took effect, but now people aren’t calling much, making appointments, or even coming in,” Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, tells the Texas Observer. “We know patients are being forced to travel out of state for care—and many of the surrounding states have wait times up to six weeks. It’s awful and very frustrating, because we should be able to give them care in their own communities.”
It’s not just neighboring states in which patients have sought care. Hagstrom Miller has heard from colleagues who provide abortions as far away as New York, Washington, Michigan, Georgia, and Florida seeing patients who made the trek all the way from Texas.
Hagstrom Miller’s experience substantiates new research from reproductive health policy organization the Guttmacher Institute, which found at least 12 states that do not border the Lone Star State are serving patients from Texas. Based on data from 120 clinics in 28 states and Washington, D.C., Guttmacher found Texas patients are traveling hundreds and even thousands of miles from their homes to receive abortion procedures in places including Illinois, Washington, Ohio, California, Indiana, Tennessee, and Maryland. In some cases, the number of patients coming in from Texas has doubled: A clinic in Tennessee reported it had twice as many patients from Texas since the law took effect than it did in all of 2020.”