Supreme Court to hear Texas abortion case

The organization, part of the University of Texas at Austin, surveyed 779 women, 22 percent of which say they themselves or someone they personally knew had self-induced or attempted to self-induce an abortion.

“Texas women are forced to go to multiple and unnecessary visits at clinics that are now farther away, take more days off of work, losing income, find childcare and arrange and pay for transportation for hundreds of miles”, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, chief executive of Whole Woman’s Health, the lead plaintiff in the challenge that was accepted by the Supreme Court.

A study at the University of Texas found a sharp increase in the number of attempted self-induced abortions in Texas after laws were passed there restricting access to clinical abortions and abortion-inducing medications. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge against the law by abortion providers.

Time should immediately correct their headline and story text that indicates that the self-abortions came after the 2013 law. But many women in the state – an estimated 100,000 to 240,000 – have since tried to end a pregnancy on their own, according to research at the University of Texas.

Data collection occurred over a period of five weeks between December 2014 and January 2015. One-point-seven percent said they had, and 1.8 percent reported their friend had.

Whatever the justices decide next year will help clarify the court’s 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, when a divided court upheld the right to abortion while letting states impose restrictions that do not block women from obtaining services.

But, the Supreme Court on June 29 again stayed the Fifth Circuit’s decision, until it could consider whether to hear the case – which it now says it will. The state has wide discretion to pass laws ensuring Texas women are not subject to substandard conditions at abortion facilities.

Women’s health advocates argued that the costs of meeting HB2’s building and equipment requirements are prohibitive and can run from $100,000 to several million dollars, which numerous clinics cannot afford, forcing more than half to shut their doors. The study notes that women seeking to perform a self-induced abortion will often obtain misoprostol in pharmacies in Mexico, where it is often available over the counter, or on the black market in the United States.

The average Texas county is now 111 miles from the nearest clinic, up from 72 miles in 2012. But critics say the real effect of the law is to make it far harder for abortion clinics to operate. Fewer abortion clinics will hopefully result in the death of fewer unborn babies and better health for the mothers carrying them, who will not have to endure abortion clinic chop shops, the side-effects of abortion, or pressure from friends and family members to abort their babies because that option exists.

“And after a while taking all the pills was very nauseating and I didn’t want to do it any more”, one interviewee wrote, about taking black cohosh, vitamin C and “a special root pill” to try to end her pregnancy. “Later abortion procedures are also significantly more costly to women”. In 2012, the Texas Policy Evaluation Project reported that 7 percent of abortion patients in Texas indicated “taking or doing something on their own” in an attempt to terminate their pregnancy.

When the Supreme Court made its announcement on November 13, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said: ‘The common-sense measures Texas has put in place, elevate the standard of care and protect the health of Texas women.