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Getting an abortion in Texas is now more or less impossible, so fuck you, Governor Greg Abbott
It’s one of the strictest laws in the country
by
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a new anti-abortion law which will make it basically impossible for women to receive an abortion.
Last summer the U.S. Supreme Court shut down many of Texas’s strict laws by stating they were unconstitutional but on Tuesday, the Texas House voted 96 to 47 on second-trimester abortion bans.
Second-trimester abortions are also known as dilation and evacuation, which experts say is the safest and most accessed form of second-trimester abortions. The law would ban D&E procedures even in the case of rape and incest.
With only 10 abortion clinics left in the state of Texas — the majority of which located in big cities — it can be difficult for low-income women to access abortion clinics before their second trimester.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, states are banning specific abortion practices in an attempt to slowly eliminate abortion altogether, because they cannot simply ban abortion outright.
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say this ban will “limit the ability of physicians to provide women with the medically appropriate care they need, and will likely result in worsened outcomes and increased complications.”
In addition to the ban on D&E abortions, the bill also mandates the burial or cremation of the embryonic and fetal remains and bans the donation of fetal tissue. This can be expensive for abortion clinics and experts say it could potentially lead to more clinics closing.
The Texas Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologist also argued that the mandate of this disposal could be cruel to woman who are experiencing grief and trauma after having an abortion.
One Texas woman who had an abortion after she was raped said requiring her to bury the fetus would have “essentially been the state of Texas rubbing my face in my own rape.”
Texas medical director for Whole Women’s Health, Bhavik Kumar, points out this bill will likely force women to take abortion into their own hands, which could be the most terrifying consequence of the all.
“It’s already happening in Texas,” Kumar told the San Antonio Current. “I can only imagine that’s going to get worse with this bill.”