Texas abortion law could send women across borders

[Judi Lynn]

Aug 12, 4:40 PM EDT
Texas abortion law could send women across borders
By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA and PAUL J. WEBER
Associated Press

EL PASO, Texas (AP) -- Crossing borders is a part of life in El Paso in far West Texas, where people may walk into Mexico to visit family or commute to New Mexico for work. But getting an abortion doesn't require leaving town.

That could change if a federal judge upholds new Texas rules that would ban abortions at 18 clinics starting Sept. 1, including only one that offers the procedure in El Paso, where one of the toughest anti-abortion laws in the U.S. has come under particular scrutiny at a trial ending Wednesday in Austin.

Without any abortion providers in El Paso, women there would face a 550-mile trip to the nearest place in Texas to legally terminate a pregnancy. Attorneys for the state point out that women wouldn't really have to drive that far: They could simply go to a clinic 15 minutes away in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

Opponents of the new rules say that argument shows the goal isn't to protect women, as supporters contend. New Mexico - which one anti-abortion group mocks as the "anything goes" Wild West of abortion access - does not require the same new standards that Republican Gov. Rick Perry approved in 2013 in the name of protecting women's health. It also doesn't require the pre-abortion sonograms that Texas began mandating in 2012.

More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ABORTIONS_ACROSS_STATE_LINES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-08-12-15-46-53

[El Supremo]

1. Misleading headline.

It is talking about state borders, not international ones.

I saw that in the El Paso Times earlier today.

[Warpy]

2. Poor women will do what they did before 1974

and resort to crochet hooks, knitting needles, ineffective laxative overdoses, and shoving things up into their uteri that cause embolism and quick death. ERs will soon have at least one septic abortion or perforated uterus to deal with per week, then per day.

Texas is a laboratory of what not to do, especially to women.

The best women then can hope for is that the black market RU 486 moves northward from Mexico to equally backwards Texas.

[bluestateguy]

3. Women who can afford to go, will go to California

For poorer women, it will be the back alleys and the quacks.