Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson that overturned Roe v. Wade, ending federal protections for abortion and triggering a near-total ban on abortions in Texas. The only exception is medical emergencies when the mother’s life is at risk.
The Office of the Attorney General observed the anniversary as “Sanctity of Life Day” and closed its offices Friday “in honor of the many lives lost to abortions,” according to an agency press release. Attorney General Ken Paxton currently faces an impeachment trial related to allegations of misconduct and fraud.
While most clinics had already stopped providing abortions in September 2021 when Senate Bill 8 — which allows lawsuits against anyone involved in an abortion performed on a patient who is more than six weeks pregnant — took effect, the Dobbs decision also prohibited physicians from prescribing pills for medical abortions.
An abortion pill, mifepristone, has also faced legal attacks.
But reproductive clinics, including five Planned Parenthood South Texas health centers in San Antonio, continue to provide services including primary care, birth control, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, gender-affirming hormone therapy and fertility assistance.
“Making sure that people know that we’re are still here and providing care is paramount because that’s part of what our opposition tries to do is to scare people into thinking that they can’t access the health care that they need,” said Laura Terrill, CEO of Planned Parenthood South Texas. “We want to make sure to dispel that notion at every opportunity.”
In March, the organization celebrated the grand opening and expansion of its West Side clinic, which is expected to serve 4,000 patients each year.
“For women that need access to abortion services, it has been an incredibly long year,” Terrill said. “Fear and confusion about how to access care have exacerbated existing health outcomes.”
To mark the anniversary, the San Antonio Report spoke with Terrill about the impact this year has had on staff and the community. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
San Antonio Report: Do you still get patients calling in or showing up to get an abortion?
Laura Terrill: We have people calling all the time.
We had a patient call in recently who was desperate to access abortion care. And we gave her the information that we could. She said, if I can’t access an abortion, I am going to end my life.
And that’s not the only time we’ve heard that. We navigated her to the health care that she needed, including some mental health care, to make sure that she was safe and healthy.
It’s devastating that, depending on where people live, that determines the freedom to control their own bodies.
The abortion ban is unconscionable, writ large. The fact that the state hasn’t increased access to sexual and reproductive health education, nor access to preventative care, is a triple threat for families and women.
SAR: What does that resource navigation look like?
LT: It depends on the health center. A couple of our health center locations receive federal family planning grants. Those grants stipulate that we navigate patients to abortion care.
But for clinics that don’t receive that funding, existing law — and we’re continuing to research what are our options are — is confusing and when it’s not confusing, it’s fairly restrictive about what kind of resources we can give to patients.
However, all clinics share information about abortionfinder.org, which is an incredibly important entry point for accessing a whole cadre of services including abortion funds that can help folks travel and find the care that they need.
Here in San Antonio, folks are having to travel more than 600 miles, and in the Rio Grande Valley, they’re having to travel 800 miles. These are often folks who already faced systemic barriers to health care.
Maternal mortality rates, particularly for people of color, continue to increase and the ban further compounds inequities in the way people access care.
In addition to being cruel, and denying people their bodily autonomy, these laws are also pushing people further into pregnancy and potentially forcing people to choose an abortion method that doesn’t suit them. Abortion bans are not health care — it wasn’t about protecting people’s lives. People shouldn’t have to wait to be near death to get the health care they need.
Our focus is always on the patients, and I do want to uplift the challenges to medical care providers as well, who are forced to deny their training. Politicians are inserting themselves in the exam room, and determining what a medical provider can and cannot do or say to the patient.
SAR: Abortion pills such as mifepristone are still legal, but can Planned Parenthood clinics use them at all?
LT: We aren’t doing any medical abortion, but it is still something that we use if a patient comes to see us for miscarriage management.
But miffy [slang for mifepristone] is still currently available despite the attacks. It’s a medication that has been proven to be more safe than Tylenol.
The law requires people to be near death before they can access the health care that they need; before doctors are willing to perform abortions. That’s why women here in Texas are suing the state.
SAR: What else has changed for Planned Parenthood? How has staff taken this past year?
LT: Every single day I, although not surprised, continue to be amazed at the resiliency of our staff. They care so deeply about our mission and making sure that Texans get the health care that they need and deserve. They show up every day, no matter what, to make sure that that care is being delivered with quality and compassion and no judgment.
We are providing more preventative health care services and I’m pleased to say that we saw more men last year than we ever have before. That’s primarily for STI detection and treatment.
Planned Parenthood is often the entry point for people to see other doctors and sometimes we’re the only health care provider that people see. We play such a critically important role in the health care system. And what we know is that when women are healthy, families are healthy and communities are more healthy.
We are committed to continuing to fight like hell to restore access to the full range of reproductive health care, including abortion.
SAR: Where does the fight go from here?
LT: There’s a lot that we can and will be doing to restore access. We’ll continue to work with our network of partners around the state on democracy reform.
A recent poll showed that 52% of Texans support making it easier to access abortion care. And that polling is consistent with what we’ve known to be true in Texas for a very long time.
Some of the challenges that we face are the ways in which access to the ballot and voting rights have been attacked. We saw evidence of that in the most recent legislative session where a bill was proposed to eliminate ballot drop-off sites on college campuses. Why would we make it harder for young people to vote? A healthy democracy is when voters pick their elected leaders. More and more here in Texas, the rules have been rigged such that elected leaders and politicians are picking their voters.
We’re working with this network of progressive allies and partners, taking a 360-degree look at all of the ways in which public policy harms the people that we care about and provide services to.
According to a recent survey, nearly 60% of Americans opposed overturning Roe v. Wade. It showed that 80% of Americans oppose a federal ban on abortion and that obviously includes a majority of Republicans and Independents.
That’s pretty telling data. We know that people are with us.
SAR: You were hired to lead PP South Texas about one year ago. Do you have any local initiatives you’re working on?
LT: We’re about to embark on a listening tour. We’re going to go out into the community and talk with our supporters and patients about who Planned Parenthood South Texas is to them and what they need access to, in order to see if we have a role to play there.
We want to fortify partnerships and make sure that we have a sense of the landscape so that we’re not replicating service offerings to the community.
In the meantime, we are still here, our doors are still open, and I’m fiercely proud of our staff and the work that we continue to be able to provide.
