“She was suicidal on the phone,” says Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder of Texas abortion clinic Whole Women’s Health, of a woman who was recently unable to secure an appointment for an abortion in or out of the state. For most women seeking abortion, she says, calls to the clinic have turned into “grief support layered with travel logistics navigation.”
A Texas ban on abortion after six weeks, which went into effect in September, makes reproductive care impossible to access for most women in the state. Those who have the resources to travel across state lines are finding it harder to get appointments, as clinics in states surrounding Texas become increasingly overburdened.
During a press call with the Center for Reproductive Rights on Thursday, abortion providers were clear: All this and more will become the norm in many parts of the country if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, which they’re likely to do in the next year. The court also refused to block the Texas law. So why doesn’t the Democrat-controlled Congress vote to enshrine abortion rights as federal law? Congress exists to pass legislation—why allow nine justices, six of whom were nominated by Republican presidents, to determine reproductive rights?
On Monday, February 28, the Senate will vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act. This would make abortion rights a part of federal law, protecting abortion access and codifying the fact that, as the act reads, “abortion services are essential to health care” and “reproductive justice is a human right.” The WHPA already passed in the House of Representatives. But the vote was 218 to 211, with every Republican and one Democrat voting against it. In the Senate, which is split 50-50 Democrats and Republicans, the act would need 60 votes. That means its passage is essentially impossible. Every Republican senator, as well as one Democrat—West Virginia’s Joe Manchin—are projected to vote down the legislation.
Democrats just barely control the Senate, with 50 senators and Vice President Kamala Harris as a tiebreaker. With the filibuster rule, Republicans can easily block the passage of laws like the Women’s Health Protection Act. This, despite the fact that Americans overwhelmingly support the right to abortion. In 2021, 59% of Americans think that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, the Pew Research Center found. And in the same year, 80% of people polled told Gallup that abortion should be legal in certain circumstances.
Women living in Texas and other states with little abortion access are already living in a nightmare scenario. Hagstrom Miller finally finagled an appointment for the distraught woman on the phone—in Arkansas. In the same period, one of her clinic workers spoke to a woman who needed an abortion to receive cancer treatment. But because the woman was eight weeks pregnant, she was forced to leave the state in order to get one. And abortions for minors have dropped by 70% to 90% since the Texas law went into effect—teens are even less likely than adults to have the resources to leave the state. That means they’re more likely to be forced to carry a pregnancy, or to manage their own abortions. Women of color, poor women, and teens are most affected by abortion bans, experts warn.
Already groups like the Center for Reproductive Rights are making plans for how to respond if Roe is overturned. But experts warn that if we think we can donate and crowdfund and tweet our way out of this situation, we’re mistaken. “To live in a state where we’re expected to have private charities come in and be the safety net for the failures of our state government is impossible,” said Rosann Mariappuram, executive director of Jane’s Due Process, a group that helps Texas teens access safe abortion and birth control. “This is beyond unsustainable, and it has to be changed with strong federal and state action.”
Jenny Singer is a staff writer for Glamour. You can follow her on Twitter.
