Court Upholds Ruling Likely to Close All but Eight Abortion Clinics in the Entire State of Texas
June 13, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
We received this from Stop Patriarchy, the movement to End Pornography and Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women.
On June 12, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled to uphold Texas law HB2, the draconian anti-abortion law, that already led to the largest wave of clinic closures since Roe v. Wade. The law requires that abortion clinics meet the hospital-like standards of ambulatory surgical centers (ASC), and requires abortion providers receive admitting privileges from nearby hospitals. There are completely medically unnecessary restrictions whose sole purpose is to shut down clinics.
This 100% illegitimate, immoral law will have devastating effects on the lives of women. This means that all but eight abortion clinics in the entire state will be forced to close. (The ruling temporarily allows one clinic, Whole Woman’s Health in the Rio Grande Valley, to remain open until an abortion-providing ASC opens in the area.)
After these shutdowns, almost a million women of reproductive age will live more than 150 miles from the nearest abortion provider. For women in El Paso, this is a round trip of more than 1,000 miles to the nearest clinic. That’s a 16-hour drive for an abortion unless they go out of state. Clinics in Texas are already overwhelmed with trying to provide for so many women who urgently need their services.
This is unacceptable! ALL women’s lives matter! Including the more than 900,000 in Texas who will soon face even more difficulty obtaining a safe, legal abortion. Last summer, when Stop Patriarchy organized the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride 2014: Ground Zero Texas to fight HB2, a provider in Houston told us that his office was already seeing a notable increase in the number of women coming into the clinic who had tried to self-induce, putting their lives in real danger. This will dramatically increase. Thousands more will have their lives foreclosed by being forced to bear children they do not want—shattering their dreams, trapping them in abusive relationships, and/or driving them into humiliating and dangerous poverty. Rural, poor, immigrant, and women of color will be hardest hit.
From the Fifth Circuit Court on the ruling (citing the language of the original Roe v. Wade decision): “Id. at 150. The Court likewise credited an interest in protecting potential life: ‘as long as at least potential life is involved, the State may assert interests beyond the protection of the pregnant woman alone.'”*
There you have it, forced motherhood, female enslavement, codified into law.
If you do not want to see women slammed further and further into the dark ages, you must take a stand against this escalating assault on abortion rights. On July 1, take your outrage to the streets. Join with Stop Patriarchy in bold, defiant outpourings nationwide to demand an end to abortion restrictions in Kansas, Tennessee, Texas, and elsewhere. Sound the alarm on this war on women, and shine a much needed light on the situation for women.
Attacks on abortion rights anywhere are attacks on women everywhere. Take a stand. Stop the war on women! ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY!
* Fifth Circuit Opinion On HB2
Volunteers Needed... for revcom.us and Revolution
If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.
