Post by pavel on Jan 21, 2016 11:58:27 GMT -6
Getting an Abortion in Texas is Expensive and Complicated Thanks to Clinic Closures
In two months, when the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on whether the omnibus anti-abortion law Texas passed in 2013 goes too far, the justices will likely be asked to consider the practical impact of the law.
Hence the latest study from the Texas Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Texas at Austin, a group of researchers that have been examining the on-the-ground effects of an onslaught of laws passed by the Texas Legislature in 2011 and 2013 that either curtailed reproductive rights or slashed funding to family planning programs.
A study from TxPEP, as it's known, published this month in Contraception (a peer-reviewed “international reproductive health journal”) documents the experiences of 23 women who were turned away from clinics that shuttered due to provisions of House Bill 2 that have already been allowed to take effect (the U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to decide whether the state can enforce the last and strictest provision, that all abortion clinics meet the hospital-like standards of so-called ambulatory surgical center). According to researchers, many of the women who had to find another abortion clinic, sometimes hundreds of miles away, faced a confusing, lengthy and expensive process. For two of the women interviewed, abortion had actually become inaccessible; they followed through with unwanted pregnancies.
The study builds on a body of research that could be important as the Supreme Court hears arguments that HB2 constitutes an “undue burden” on a woman's right to choose, rendering the law unconstitutional. It's expected HB2, if fully implemented, would shutter, at least for a while, all clinics outside of the state's major metro hubs of Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas-Fort Worth. That means nearly 1 million Texas women would live more than 150 miles away from the nearest abortion provider, or about one in six women of reproductive age in the state.
Read more: www.houstonpress.com/news/study-getting-an-abortion-in-texas-is-expensive-and-complicated-thanks-to-clinic-closures-8085760
In two months, when the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on whether the omnibus anti-abortion law Texas passed in 2013 goes too far, the justices will likely be asked to consider the practical impact of the law.
Hence the latest study from the Texas Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Texas at Austin, a group of researchers that have been examining the on-the-ground effects of an onslaught of laws passed by the Texas Legislature in 2011 and 2013 that either curtailed reproductive rights or slashed funding to family planning programs.
A study from TxPEP, as it's known, published this month in Contraception (a peer-reviewed “international reproductive health journal”) documents the experiences of 23 women who were turned away from clinics that shuttered due to provisions of House Bill 2 that have already been allowed to take effect (the U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to decide whether the state can enforce the last and strictest provision, that all abortion clinics meet the hospital-like standards of so-called ambulatory surgical center). According to researchers, many of the women who had to find another abortion clinic, sometimes hundreds of miles away, faced a confusing, lengthy and expensive process. For two of the women interviewed, abortion had actually become inaccessible; they followed through with unwanted pregnancies.
The study builds on a body of research that could be important as the Supreme Court hears arguments that HB2 constitutes an “undue burden” on a woman's right to choose, rendering the law unconstitutional. It's expected HB2, if fully implemented, would shutter, at least for a while, all clinics outside of the state's major metro hubs of Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas-Fort Worth. That means nearly 1 million Texas women would live more than 150 miles away from the nearest abortion provider, or about one in six women of reproductive age in the state.
Read more: www.houstonpress.com/news/study-getting-an-abortion-in-texas-is-expensive-and-complicated-thanks-to-clinic-closures-8085760