Chaos in Texas as new abortion law takes effect
The Supreme Court allowing a statute that bans most abortions is the biggest curb to the constitutional right to an abortion in decades.
The anti-abortion movement in Texas won a major victory Thursday after a novel legal approach to banning abortion was not blocked by the Supreme Court, throwing abortion services across the state into chaos and prompting some women to leave the state for procedures.
The Supreme Court refused just before midnight on Wednesday to block the law prohibiting abortions after cardiac activity is detected — usually about six weeks of pregnancy. Now the measure, which was signed into law in May, will run its course in the lower courts. Its unique legal structure, though, means it will likely remain in effect for the duration of the legal battle.
The law deputizes ordinary citizens to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion, and abortion clinics were bracing for an onslaught of lawsuits. Instead, what seemed to be happening Thursday was near-complete compliance with the law without a single suit yet filed. The largest anti-abortion group in the state, Texas Right to Life, said it had received “a couple of voice mail messages,” and some tips on its website that did not pan out. But overall, the movement was pleased that abortions had practically stopped.
On Thursday in Texas, that meant a changed landscape for abortion care. Abortion clinics reported dramatic drops in patients on their schedules. And pregnancy crisis centers, where anti-abor- tion groups offer pregnancy services, reported surges in phone calls and walk-ins. Abortion funds, which help poor women pay for proce- dures, reported a rise in the numbers of patients seeking treatment out of state.
The law was novel and its success surprised even some in the anti-abortion move- ment. Jana Pinson, executive director of the Preg- nancy Center of the Coastal Bend, which has four locations in the Corpus Christi area, said her clinics had been “flooded” this week with cli- ents who were confused and sometimes angry. Waiting rooms have been “filled to overflowing” and staff members have been staying late to accommodate requests from women seeking ultrasounds and pregnancy tests.
“I didn’t think it would hap- pen in my lifetime,” she said of the bill’s success.
Last week, Pinson and 17 staff members were at a national conference in San Antonio hosted by Care Net, a Christian network of crisis pregnancy centers. They hast- ily assembled a side meet- ing for Texas leaders in the parking lot of a local home for young single pregnant women. Over tacos, about 175 people discussed what they needed to do to prepare for a near-complete ban on abortion in their state: Revising the handouts in their clinics, updating handbooks, counseling new waves of cli- ents. That night, Pinson’s team stayed up until mid- night talking about the work to come.
The Supreme Court’s vote was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. join- ing the court’s three liberal members in dissent.
The majority opinion was unsigned and consisted of a single long paragraph. It said the abortion providers who had challenged the law in an emergency application to the court had not made their case in the face of “complex and novel” procedural ques- tions. The majority stressed that it was not ruling on the constitutionality of the Texas law and did not mean to limit “procedurally proper chal- lenges” to it.
But the ruling was certain to fuel the hopes of abor- tion opponents and fears of abortion rights advocates as the court takes up a sep- arate case in its new term this fall to decide whether Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision establishing a con- stitutional right to the proce- dure, should be overruled.