Texas abortion advocacy groups plan future steps if Supreme Court opinion is finalized
As abortion opponents appear to be gaining momentum after a copy of a Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked to Politico late Monday night, political polarization between anti-abortion and abortion-rights groups continues to grow and cement.
Texas, which has the most restrictive abortion laws in the country in effect, has banned the procedure after about six weeks of pregnancy. The possible court decision, which won’t be finalized until June, could mean that abortions in dozens of states, including Texas, will be outlawed from as early as conception.
Yet, until that final decision comes in, advocacy groups on both sides have their own worries — anti-abortion organizations fear a pushback that may sway the court’s decision, and abortion-rights organizations fear that the opinion will go into effect and reverse the decision that established a constitutional right to abortion in 1973.
‘You can’t lose hope’
Whole Woman’s Health Alliance, which provides abortion care including at a clinic in Fort Worth and advocates to “eradicate the abortion stigma,” said that the leaked draft opinion was a glimpse of what abortion providers nationwide had been preparing for.
“It doesn’t come as a shock to us that this is a possible, and probable decision, from the court and it is something that unfortunately, we’ve had to take account for some time ago and had to begin to plan accordingly,” said Marva Sadler, the nonprofit’s director of clinical services.
Maleeha Aziz, a community organizer with the Texas Equal Access Fund, echoed that sentiment and said that while the TEA Fund was preparing for a “worst-case scenario” for abortion rights like the overturning of Roe v. Wade, seeing this draft opinion makes the possibilities seem more real.
“It hits a little bit differently when you can see that visual draft, when you can see something, you have something you can read,” Aziz said. “It evokes a different kind of emotion. It feels more real. And that’s terrifying.”
She said it’s not just her and her organization that are feeling this way. It’s women across the nation.
“We’re all feeling sadness, shock and horror and I think a lot of us are holding onto a tiny bit of hope, even if there is a worst-case scenario that they overturn Roe v. Wade,” Aziz said
Sadler noted that after Texas put its abortion law into effect, Whole Woman’s Health Alliance, which is also the country’s largest independent abortion provider, had begun setting up new systems and programs to help women in restrictive states receive access to reproductive care, and that effort is expected to continue if the court’s decision is finalized.
“We’re working in conjunction with our stigma relief fund to provide direct appointments for patients and clinics outside of the state when they’re not able to continue their care here,” Sadler said, which includes setting up flights, bus tickets, train tickets, gas cards and hotels for individuals seeking an abortion.
“So we’ve been really working on using what we’ve learned during this time to develop and prepare to launch on a much larger and bigger scale,” Sadler said. “The other thing we’re doing is definitely focusing on our clinics that are in a safer states to make sure that we are internally prepared with providers and staff and facilities to be able to accommodate the influx of patients they will see come in for sure.”
Sadler also said that even if abortions become outlawed, in what’s expected to be 26 states, women who are seeking to end a pregnancy will attempt to find a way.
“We’ll definitely see an increase of women taking things into their own hands, and then we’re also going to see an increase of women who are having to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles to obtain the care that they can’t get close to their home,” Sadler said. “And it’s not a thought, it’s a statistical fact that it is more dangerous to take a car ride 100 miles than it is to have a safe legal abortion in your own community.”
Aziz said the TEA Fund has already been looking into ways to help women trying to get an abortion out of state afford it. The costs go beyond the price of the procedure, she said, and extend to the expenditures of a flight, a hotel room, and ultrasound and other things they’ll need to pay for. The fund hopes to be able to help cover those costs if that becomes necessary, Aziz said.
Having had to travel out of state for an abortion at one point, Aziz said she knows how bills can add up. That travel and the money spent also creates extra stress she said should not be necessary for a woman wanting to make a choice about how to care for her own body.
It especially has impacts on low-income women of color, Aziz said. They’re the women who typically have the most need for abortion services and yet have the hardest time accessing them, even in states that largely support abortion rights.
And although the nonprofit has plans in place if the decision is finalized, it also is focused on keeping spirits high.
“For me personally, I don’t have the pleasure of working with patients directly anymore, but when you’re in the space where you’re working with patients every day, the one thing that you cannot lose is hope because patients feel that and then they lose hope,” Sadler said, adding that although the draft is discouraging, abortion is not illegal yet.
“We’re very invested in doing everything we possibly can to keep our teams motivated to keep our teams feeling as safe as possible and to continue to remind them of that they’re while they’re seeing the patient,” Sadler said. “There’s a team of us working on what’s next and what the plans are because we can’t afford to lose some hope.”
Aziz said she hopes people understand that this draft opinion is not law yet and encouraged women who have appointments for abortions to keep those appointments and women seeking abortions and needing help to contact the TEA Fund.
She is hopeful the public pressure that will come from abortion-rights advocates will have an impact and change the decision the highest court in America has expressed, but no matter if it does or doesn’t, the battle is not over.
“We’ll keep fighting, Aziz said. “You can count on that.”
‘Business as usual’
While anti-abortion advocate and Texas Right to Life spokesperson Kimberlyn Schwartz and Aziz may not agree on abortion issues, they both said no matter the outcome from the case, the fight isn’t over. The decades-long struggle fought by Texas Right to Life and countless other anti-abortion organizations and individuals won’t ever truly end, Schwartz said.
“Not only are we going to have to play defense against the pro-abortion organizations trying to turn the tide but we’ll need to build a culture that values life,” Schwartz said.
If the draft of the Supreme Court opinion is in fact the final decision that is handed down, Schwartz said the fight will continue at the federal and state levels. Abortion-rights activists will work to have that ruling overturned and Roe v. Wade reinstituted, and anti-abortion activists will continue to fight for more legislation that acknowledges the life of unborn children, she said.
Anti-abortion advocates will also begin fighting against abortion access on a state-by-state basis, working to further restrict it and “protect the pre-born lives that are threatened by abortion.”
But Schwartz is unsure of what the leaked document actually means and worries it may have been leaked “maliciously” to encourage public pressure against the court’s supposed decision outlined in the draft.
Amy O’Donnell, a spokesperson from Texas Alliance for Life, an abortion-opposing nonprofit — which has advocated toward “protecting life from conception to natural death using peaceful legal means,” since 1988 — echoed Chief Justice John Roberts’ sentiments calling the leaked document “an egregious breach of trust,” within the court, but also added that the organization is hopeful the decision will remain the same in upcoming weeks.
“If this does go into law, we as an organization have been working towards this point for a long time. The anticipation that Roe v. Wade could be overturned, has been something that we have acknowledged and been aware of as a possibility,” said O’Donnell, the organization’s director of communications. “We have to trust as Chief Roberts asserted today that the work of the court will not be affected in any way by the leak. We trust our justices to continue to do business as usual and not be swayed by public opinion. At the same time, we recognize that the leaked draft is not the final and there are draft changes that occur as the drafts are circulated and votes can shift.”
O’Donnell said the organization is moving forward with “cautious optimism,” as they await a final decision and that their mission will carry on as normal.
“Our goal now, as always, is to educate women on the compassionate alternatives to abortion that are available in our state. Texas has allotted $100 million, which is an increase from the $80 million previously … to fund some of these compassionate alternatives to abortion,” O’Donnell said. “And those monies go towards organizations such as pregnancy resource centers, maternity homes, adoption agencies who in various ways support women as they walk through unplanned pregnancies and consider their life options moving forward.”
Schwartz said Texas Right to Life, which has been fighting for anti-abortion legislation since before Roe v. Wade was instituted and has actively opposed that Supreme Court ruling since it was handed down, is “prayerfully cautious and optimistic.”
“This leak could be intended to put pressure on the court to back down, but we’re hoping and praying the court will stay strong and the justices will continue to have the fortitude to overturn Roe v. Wade,” Schwartz said.
No matter what happens, Texas Right to Life will continue working to offer alternatives to abortion like financial assistance to pregnant women, shelters for pregnant woman and free access to adoption resources and agencies, Schwartz said.
“We don’t just want Texas to be anti-abortion,” she said. “We want Texas to be pro-life.”
And while she and most in her organization are praying for the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the court’s decision in this case, Schwartz said the “pro-life” stance is not exclusively or even primarily a faith-based one. She said a large part of the fight of anti-abortion advocates is to highlight that unborn children can feel pain, have heartbeats and can have thoughts and dreams while in the womb.
“The core of the pro-life belief is an answer to a simple question about if the pre-born life of a human being is just that, a human being who deserves protection,” Schwartz said. “The answer to that question, scientifically or through a faith perspective, is yes. And if the answer is yes, you must admit that abortion is taking a life.”
