texas providing abortion. by 2014, it wasn t 44 anymore, it was half that. 22. she told us she was in the process right then of closing two of the five clinics she ran including that one in mcallen. about it end of that year, by the end of 2014, in the great state of texas, a state of 30 million people, by the end of 2014, there were only eight clinics in texas. texas is at the forefront of this for a long time. wherever the anti-abortion movement is going in this country, you can be sure that texas will get there first. passing new and inventive ways to block women from accessing abortion. no feeling at the court saying what must past muster, what not, tweaking the law again. that meant a two decade long roller coaster for health care providers. clinics get shut down for weeks or months and then a court steps
even before today, a big chunk texas was a desert when it came to being able to safely access legal abortion services. particularly for west texans, people in the panhandle up north and the nearest abortion clinic can be 250 miles from where you live. that means a four or fuf hour drive if you have a car. texas republicans made sure that abortion procedures in texas can t just happen in one day. they have to be a multiday affair. so multiply the cost to account for that as well. there is an organization in texas that was founded specifically to overcome that deliberate hurdle put in the face put in the way of women trying to access abortion services. it is called fund texas choice. one of their employees described it in 2016 interview as saying,
abortion bans they tried to pass and other republican states tried to pass, trying to avoid federal court scrutiny and that seems to have worked in the short run so that supreme court allowed this to go into effect. understanding now legally worked in order to evade court scrutiny. but the other side of it, the practical side is people that work to facilitate texas women getting to their appointments, getting to the clunic, getting to a place they can access abortion services, wait this law is structured, it puts a bulls eye on you guys and anybody that helps in any way and makes you the targets of civil suits which will effectively be the wait this law is imposed. how do you contend with that? you know, we have done a lot of thinking ever since the law was passed. and we ve talked to lawyers. we ve talked we read the law our self. our understanding is that if you aid and abet someone getting an abortion in texas, that s where you re really implicated. and so we intend to comply wi