Texas’s New Anti-Abortion Bill Could Be Be the First Step in Killing ‘Roe’
Imagine a young woman in Lubbock, Texas, home for the summer before her senior year of college. She has just missed her period, she’s certain she’s pregnant. She wants to finish school and start her career, but she’s working the summer for her final year’s tuition and housing costs. She has to drive hours to Fort Worth for an abortion, and she can’t miss too much work—the abortion itself will already take a huge bite out of her summer earnings. She needs to wait at least two pay periods to have the funds, and another week or two to get a few consecutive days off work.
Or imagine a 17-year-old girl from Fort Worth, just realizing she is pregnant. She is afraid to let her family know. Her parents are already emotionally—sometimes physically—abusive. They wouldn’t want her to have a baby, but they definitely would make her life hell for getting pregnant in the first place. But in two months she’ll be 18, old enough to get an abortion without their permission or knowledge, and she has the money. She just needs to wait a little longer.
Or how about a new mother in Austin with a thriving 6-month-old. She was nursing, and she assumed that’s why she wasn’t menstruating. She was sleep-deprived and thought surely that’s why she was tired and sick. Now the doctor tells her she’s almost 15 weeks along. Her parental leave is almost over. How can she go back and say she’s pregnant again? Besides, she and her husband only wanted one child, and she still hasn’t recovered from her first pregnancy. No one wants to do this again.
More: Texas’s New Anti-Abortion Bill Could Be Be the First Step in Killing ‘Roe’