Almost 2 percent of Texas women say they tried to induce abortion

Two justices, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, voted to hear the case.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed November 13 to rule on a Texas law that stands to sound the death knell for many abortion clinics. The divide over protecting the unborn and safeguarding the right of a woman to choose is among the starkest differences between the Republican and Democratic candidates.

Critics of bill argued that, since state law already prohibits using taxpayer dollars to pay for non-therapeutic abortions, House Bill 294 attacks these health services for women.

Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, said it was “tremendously disrespectful” for Texas women to not have equal access to safe abortions. The Supreme Court clarified in Gonzales v. Carhart that laws regulating abortion must pass rational basis review – the lowest standard of review – which requires that a particular regulation be rationally related to a legitimate state interest.

A Texas law aimed at restricting abortions, which took effect in 2013, has led to more women trying to end a pregnancy on their own, while the number of clinical procedures in the state has declined, according to a study released on Tuesday.

Dr. Daniel Grossman, a TxPEP co-investigator and Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, said in a press release that the more restrictive law may drive more women to look for options outside of clinical care settings.

The 7th Circuit Court in Chicago blocked a Wisconsin law that was similar to the Texas law. Hospitals provide care to women who experience complications during an abortion – complications, it should be noted, that are extraordinarily rare – regardless of whether the physician who performed the abortion has admitting privileges or not.

Come next summer, it will be the Supreme Court case everyone-Twitter, Facebook, cable news, members of Congress-is talking about.

The Austin Chronicle’s Mary Tuma pointed out that 5.4 million women in Texas will be served by only 10 clinics if the Supreme Court failed to block the final parts of HB2.

With the implementation of HB2 in 2013, the number of abortion providers in Texas has fallen from 40 to just 19.

The plurality of the women in the survey said they were against abortion in general, but they understood why a woman would want to self-induce.

You’d think that Planned Parenthood, for all its talk of “women’s safety” and “rigorous medical standards”, would be the sponsors of this law and vigorous advocates of its affirmation in federal court. Next month, the Senate is expected to take up an Obamacare repeal bill that also strips Planned Parenthood of most federal funding. The study also found that it is possible that the rate of women attempting to self-induce abortions is rising in Texas as a result of the state’s additional restrictions on abortion care. “These laws have nothing to do with protecting women, and everything to do with creating coercive and almost impossible-to-navigate hurdles for those who seek abortion”, said Jessica González-Rojas, executive director of the organization.