Court changes heat up abortion fight
A swath of West Texas has been without an abortion clinic for more than six years. Planned Parenthood plans to change that with a health center it opened recently in Lubbock.
It’s an example of how abortionrights groups are striving to preserve nationwide access to the procedure even as a reconfigured Supreme Court, with the addition of conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, might be open to new restrictions.
Planned Parenthood has made recent moves to serve more women in Missouri and Kentucky, and other groups are preparing to help women in other Republican-controlled states access abortion if bans are imposed.
“Abortion access in these states now faces its gravest ever threat,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood’s president. She said the new health center in Lubbock “is an example of our commitment to our patients to meet them where they are.”
The Texas clinic opened Oct. 23 in a one-story building that had been a medical office and was renovated by Planned Parenthood. To avoid protests and boycotts that have beset some other expansion efforts, Planned Parenthood kept details, including the clinic’s location, secret until the opening was officially announced.
Planned Parenthood said the health center will provide abortions sometime next year. Meanwhile, it’s offering other services, including cancer screenings, birth control and testing for sexually transmitted infections.
Planned Parenthood closed its previous clinic in Lubbock in 2013 after the Texas Legislature slashed funding for family planning services and imposed restrictions on abortion clinics.
That law led to the closure of more than half of the 41 abortion clinics in Texas before the Supreme Court struck down key provisions in 2016. There were no clinics left to provide abortions in a region of more than 1 million people in Amarillo, Lubbock, Odessa and Midland. Anti-abortion activists have been mobilizing to prevent the return of abortion services to Lubbock and are not giving up even with the new clinic’s opening.
“Lubbock must not surrender to the abortion industry,” said Kimberlyn Schwartz, communications director for Texas Right to Life.
Her organization backs a petition drive to persuade the City Council to pass an ordinance declaring Lubbock a “sanctuary city for the unborn.” Abortion opponents hope that designation would lead to enforcement efforts or lawsuits to block abortion services. The City Council has declined to adopt the ordinance, but activists said they have enough signatures to place it on the ballot in a local referendum.
Texas is one of several red states where Planned Parenthood has sought to expand abortion access. Earlier this year, its health center in Louisville, Kentucky, began providing abortions after obtaining a license from Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.
In the previous four years, antiabortion Republican Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration refused to issue a license. The change doubled the number of abortion providers in Kentucky from one to two.