Remember the Wendy Davis Filibuster? The Law She Fought Is Driving Abortion Clinics Out of Business
As a September 1 deadline looms, nearly all of Texas’s 41 clinics have shut their doors—and a few are still fighting to stay open.
come next week, abortions can no longer legally be performed at that old facility thanks to HB 2, the omnibus abortion bill that made national headlines last summer after Texas Sen. Wendy Davis’ 11-hour filibuster. The law requires that abortions—though not vasectomies—be performed in ambulatory surgical centers, hospital-like facilities that specialize in outpatient surgery. This provision goes into effect on September 1.
Ahead of this deadline, women’s health care providers have raced to meet HB 2’s burdensome requirements, spending millions of dollars and countless hours of fundraising and construction labor. Converting a medical facility into a full-blown ambulatory surgical facility can be very expensive. Texas has 114 pages of regulations governing ASCs, which mandate wide, gurney-accommodating hallways, larger operating rooms, and sterile ventilation. According to one Texas provider, it will cost them about $40,000 more each month to operate an ASC than it would a regular clinic.
In the face of the law’s requirements, all but eight abortion clinics in the state will close by September 1. Many were forced to lock their doors earlier this year as other HB 2 provisions went into effect, including a rule that required doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where they perform abortions by the end of October 2013.