The Politics of Prevention is an occasional series on the effects of state policy on women's health services. Participate in our project by sharing your women's health story here.
In the last year, abortion clinics across the state have closed as a result of strict abortion regulations approved in 2013 by the Republican-led Texas Legislature. In August 2013, before the rules took effect, there were 40 licensed abortion providers in Texas. After a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on Thursday, there will be just eight abortion clinics authorized to perform the procedure.
That ruling allows the state — at least temporarily — to enforce requirements that doctors performing abortions have hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of a clinic and that clinics meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers. Meanwhile, the constitutionality of those measures remains under appeal.
Use the map below to see how the number of licensed abortion facilities in Texas has changed because of the new regulations. Abortion clinics are marked in teal and ambulatory surgical centers that perform abortions are marked in yellow. The clinics that remain open but no longer perform the procedure have hollow markers.
The map shows where licensed abortion facilities were located in August 2013, before the legislation took effect; the facilities that were open as of March 2014, when this project was originally produced; and the facilities that will remain open now that the admitting privileges and ambulatory surgical center rules may be enforced. Roll over the facilities to see details about their location and history.
This story was produced with the support of the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism, a program of the USC Annenberg School of Journalism's California Endowment for Health Journalism Fellowships, and in partnership with Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research and communication organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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Comments (26)
Mack Green
Texas--Moving ever forward toward the past.
Jackie Girouard via Texas Tribune on Facebook
No facilities in the Valley come fall; not even in El Paso. I'm sure the proponents of this law are hurrying to take classes to foster babies, and surely they will want to increase services for pregnant women, infants, and family planning. I didn't know they wanted more people in that area of Texas but they will be there very soon.
Carrie Youngblood via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And then accuse women who travel to seek legal medical services of "abortion tourism".
Russell Crawford
One of the main reasons that we are now suffering a loss of women's rights and damage to women's health is because the Department of State Health Services did not do what is required by law. I submitted to the DSHS a series of Scientific Laws that prove the impact of abortion in Texas is a positive impact and not a negative impact. The laws of Texas require the DSHS to review submissions by citizens and to respond to those submissions. The DSHS did not review or reply to the evidence submitted and in fact put off any substantive response for a year. Obviously this occurred because the intent of the DSHS is to impact the upcoming elections.
As a result of the actions of the DSHS, numerous clinics have been closed and thousands of women have been denied their rights.
http://www.scientificabortionlaws.com
Fr-Andrew R. Moore via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Beautiful. Thanks again Governor Perry and legislators (of both parties) who stood up for the defenseless unborn!
Bethany Herrera
Even the clinics shown as open are not operating under what once were considered normal conditions. A prospective patient seeking an appointment often finds that the waiting time for her first sonogram appointment -- or the delay between her sonogram and the second appointment for the actual procedure -- can stretch into weeks. As a result, clinics with everyday physician availability are being asked to provide care for unprecedented numbers of patients, a situation that now delays access in those facilities as well.
The elimination of all facilities in the RGV is a disaster, but if you called the remaining Texas clinics and asked how soon you could get an appointment, you would find that the situation in the rest of the state isn't much better. And it's quite literally becoming worse by the day.
Nannette Johnstone via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Andrew??? Are you educated?? Are you human? Oh wait, you're a man....never mind neither of those things matter! Very sad!!
West Texas Intermediate Crude
President Clinton said that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare."
Requiring standards for abortion centers that equal those where other surgical procedures are done will make abortions safer. It's true that most abortions do not result in complications, but lack of standards and failure to enforce them led to the suffering and deaths at Dr Gosnell's Women's Health Care Center. We don't want that here.
Legal? Abortions are legal if the rules are followed.
Rare? A matter of perspective. An abortions is never an emergency. The situation that leads for the perceived need for an abortion is >90% preventable with readily available technology. Nobody is outlawing birth control pills, devices, or methods (unless abortion is used as birth control). Saying No until sex can be done safely is effective (admittedly not as much fun).
As another president (the current one) has said, "Elections have consequences." The majority of Texas voters support current policies. If you favor abortion on demand, run for office under that platform and win an election. If you want abortions available in your community, raise funds to build clinics that meet the standards, if it means that much to you. The standards are high, as they should be, but are met all over the state by surgical centers. Why should pregnant women have 2nd class facilities to receive their "health care?"
People who oppose abortions on demand believe that taking the life of a fetus is a serious wrong, to be done only under the most extreme circumstances (that's the "rare" part of the equation). We can agree to disagree about that.
Joan P Camenson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We can thank the legislature, those guys in Austin who say they want to help women. Yuk.
Amanda LovesCats Migden via Texas Tribune on Facebook
the link doesn't work. I think your website is down.
jason chance
Abortion is a safer and a less time consuming procedure than...say....lasik Eye surgery, cosmetic surgery, vasectomy surgeries, colonoscopies, or wisdom teeth extractions....and a ton of other surgeries that take place in clinics and not in Ambulatory surgical centers.
There are more emergency hospital visits by patients who received botched dental surgery and torn rectums from colonoscopies gone wrong (I got torn once and had to stay face down in a hospital for two days) than women patients who received an abortion. People die from cosmetic surgeries and even from dental surgery.
Life Safety Code (LSC).... is the code that is supposed to be the guidelines for safety in hospitals, schools, libraries, etc.
Targeting only women's health clinics to adher to these safety codes and guidelines while excluding all other more dangerous forms of clinic surgeries from this code is unconstitutional because it is a form of targeted discrimination. Why force Abortion clinics to adher to a safety code when a guy like me can walk into a clinic and get a penis enlargement surgical procedure at a place that doesn't have space for a gurney to get through a hallway? or a clinic that doesn't have handicap parking spaces???
Shouldn't all clinics that offer surgical procedures have to follow the same safety standards? shouldn't all clinics that do surgeries be required to upgrade and renovate to become ambulatory surgical centers? If women's safety is the main reason why these pro-life people want abortion centers to become ASCs then shouldn't the argument also include "All people's safety" and include all clinics that provide any form of surgical procedure and service to adher to these safety standard regulations?
Focusing only on Abortion clinics is discrimination and unconstitutional. It should be all or none. Not just on one type of clinic because it doesn't meet with a pro-lifer's view of what is moralistically right.
Judith Shields via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Vote out the woman-hating politicians in Austin!
West Texas Intermediate Crude
Mr Chance-
Your argument makes me believe that we need tighter regulation of colonoscopy sites, not lesser regulation of abortion clinics. It's possible that the tight regulations on abortion clinics are an over-reaction to the horrors of Dr Gosnell's "Women's Medical Society," but I know of no gastroenterologists who are doing life without parole for for multiple murders done in the guise of "women's healthcare." The doctors who do colonoscopies, eye surgery, and oral surgery in my community all have hospital privileges (I don';t know about the penis enlargement procedure that you are considering- if it's to be done by a urologist, they are on our hospital staff also).
You also entirely ignore the perspective of the majority of Texans who believe that abortion has a 50% mortality rate- surely any surgical procedure, however "minor," that has a mortality rate in the double digits should be regulated tightly. I understand that you believe that the fetus is not worthy of protection under the law, but if you had come after my wife when she was carrying one of my children with that perspective, there would have been an unpleasant confrontation.
You can call "discrimination" - discriminate means to choose one over the other. I choose to protect the lives of mothers and their babies, even if it leads to inconvenience and spending a few extra dollars.
West Texas Intermediate Crude
Ms Shields-
Half the babied who are aborted are female- millions of potential women not allowed to survive. You are right- there is a cluster of abortion clinics around Austin. It will be even worse for those babies condemned by their XX status if sex selection abortions catch on in the USA as they are practiced in some overseas cultures.
Maddy Hack
Ladies (and gentleman) the real answer is to keep our legs closed until such time as we are desirous of and can support a child. Asking someone to pay for our promiscuous ways is the equivalent of expecting someone to pay for our gambling in Vegas. And Russell Crawford abortion is not a right just like Penis Enlargement is not a right. Nor is it a right or obligation that every community has a licensed clinic or hospital. Your entitlement mindset is a huge part of what's wrong with America today. And traveling for services??? I noticed prior to Aug of 2013 there were only 4 clinics west of I35 as it stretched from OK to San Antonio. Regulating healthcare provider facilities has been around for many decades. I guess if all the haters had their way they'd go back to the coat hanger abortion days where you could go anywhere and get them done. The question I'd like to see the haters answer is all other things being equal how many of you would choose one of these locations to get a procedure done versus a licensed hospital? Probably ZERO. The other question is why don't these places make the improvements necessary to become licensed? If it's so important why not do it? lastly how many of these haters are writing checks to A) either fund licensed clinics or B) Fund improvements to new ones. Once again I would guess the answer is close to ZERO. They all want to use other peoples money to pay for their behavior choices. Now before you whine about medically complicated pregnancies, rape, and other abnormal situations I'm not against that. Just have it done in a safe licensed clinic. OH and the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Waco....... last I checked they were licensed but nor performing abortions. I would suggest picketing there to start.
David Presley via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Remove the dots
Leesa Monroe via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We get the government we deserve
Carrie Hiner via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Remove the penis, remove the dot.
Dana Dixon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Grateful I'm past the child bearing age.
Amy Day via Texas Tribune on Facebook
PP led a large organization before they started taking women for granted ... truly the end of an abusive era ... the voting women in Texas are relieved.
Cody N Ailene via Texas Tribune on Facebook
That's a lot of reduction in murderers.
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Taxpayers are in for a big hit. Hide and watch.
Thrifty Senior
Very cute mr Crude but you don't have to be so long winded about it. Nobody is reading past the first sentence.The purpose of this and similar laws is to chip away at Roe v Wade. You know it and the elected Republican legislators and appelate judges know it.
Adam Silva via Texas Tribune on Facebook
http://theweek.com/article/index/269207/this-abortion-opponent-wants-to-execute-women-who-have-abortions-dont-act-so-shocked
"If abortion really is murder, then everyone involved deserves to be punished, and punished severely — just as Kevin Williamson says.
If, on the other hand, such punishment sounds wildly, almost absurdly disproportionate, then maybe it's a sign that abortion really isn't murder after all."
Bob Atkins via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The well-to-do, as always, can afford to travel for an abortion. The poor are left with few options. Providing contraception and teaching sex-ed could prevent many unwanted pregnancies. Insurance could help provide for the care, before and after birth, of those children that are carried to term. Why is Texas so opposed to that?
Paul Hughes via Texas Tribune on Facebook
At least 97% of abortion is elective, medically unnecessary, and should be outlawed. Abortion is largely a matter of personal convenience, sexual irresponsibility, and radical Feminist and Eugenicist politics.
Babies are human beings who have the right to live from the day of conception -- at which point they are NOT "part of the mother," having as they do their own unique DNA. If you do not believe that, look it up, then believe the truth.