Em-URGE-ing Voices

Your urgent thoughts, urging action.

 

This week has been a roller coaster ride in Texas. First, on Monday, District Judge Lee Yeakel found certain requirements under HB5 to be unconstitutional including the requirement of admitting privileges. But yesterday evening the 5^th Circuit Court of a Appeals blocked Judge Yeakel’s injunction on the law, which means that even though the admitting privileges are currently considered unconstitutional by the courts, they will still go into effect – starting today – until the Court has made the a permanent ruling on the provision. Basically, it’s really bad news. Clinics are already being forced to cancel appointments and experts believe this decision will close one-third of abortion clinics in the state.

Things are looking bad for abortion access in Texas right now, but this fight will be a long one. In the meantime here are three things you can do to help.

1. Help fund organizations like the Lilith Fund and TEA fund. These two organizations fund abortions in Texas and do critical work in improving access. In Texas, this is more important now more than ever. As clinics close, it will become increasing expensive to obtain an abortion, meaning abortion funds will have to raise even more money to help. For medical abortions taken by pill, Texas’s new law now requires multiple trips back to the clinic to simply take the second dose of medication, a process safe enough to do at home. Now, not only do women have to take off work, find transportation to one of the now few clinics, possibly pay for child care, and make multiple trips to get the mandatory ultrasound, and now to simply take the medication. A national move to help fund access to these services is extremely important in a state like Texas.
2. Challenge the old FDA regulations. The Food and Drug Administration is an agency beyond our own state boundaries. The problem here is that restriction on the medical abortion pill is caused by outdated regulations on the entire medical procedure. Updating and changing the FDA’s regulations will end arguments about doing what is considered best for the health of American citizens. It’s cited that because of these draconian restrictions, four states have attempted to ban the pill and nine others have ridiculous restrictions place on it. Years ago, the Center for Reproductive Rights filed a petition to the FDA to expand access to the pill and years later, we’re fighting the same fight. This same approach needs to be re-launched and in support with CRR to remove these invasive and costly restrictions. This requires a national approach with leaders and activists stripping opponents of these straw-man arguments.
3. Finally, keep fighting your fight! Texas has its own problems, but that doesn’t mean ignoring what’s going on in your state. These anti-choice bills throughout the nation are a part of an overall strategy to revisit Roe v. Wade. Though having an abortion isn’t illegal, our access to them has been limited. If all these bills to deny access to these services continue, then it won’t be long before the majority become a minority. Revisiting the Supreme Court case and a possible overturn will be perfect for our opponents because all these state-level laws already exist to eliminate abortions altogether. This of course is a drastic approach to ending abortions when we can simply, you know; reform our current sex educations programs. Until our opponents realize this, we just have to keep fighting our fight and supporting each other.