“No One Wants to Get Sued”: Some Abortion Providers Have Stopped Working in TX

A medical team performs a sonogram on an 8-weeks-pregnant woman who is seeking an abortion at Whole Woman’s Health clinic in San Antonio in 2016. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP/Shutterstock On August 31, there were 17 abortion providers serving at the four locations of the Whole Woman’s Health clinics in Texas. On September 1 — the day that the nation’s most restrictive active abortion law went into effect, there were just eight.

The vast majority of physicians who provide abortion care at Whole Woman’s Health live outside of Texas, flying in to work. Half of the clinic network’s providers have left since SB 8 went into effect. Just one of them has agreed to stay on with no questions asked. Hagstrom Miller says the remainder have agreed to stay on, but only with modifications to their schedules and if legal counsel is preemptively secured.

No one wants to get sued, Hearron said, and the threat of being entangled in lawsuits creates what he calls “a chill” on both providing abortion care and receiving it. Denise Rodriguez, the communications manager for the Texas Equal Access Fund — an abortion fund providing financial support to low-income people in North Texas — said the organization is in the middle of conversations with legal counsel about how to best protect themselves — but that is nothing new. As cities throughout Texas have passed local ordinances banning abortion throughout the past year, abortion funds have been explicitly named as “criminal entities” as a result.

The law has also cut the TEA Fund off from people who might need their help. Rodriguez says that since most of their clients come to them by clinic referrals — and learn about the existence of abortion funds after they have scheduled the appointment for their procedure. So with fewer people able to access abortion care, they’re hearing from fewer people — people they could potentially point to out-of-state services.

“A lot of our work right now is helping people pay for abortions, but a lot of it is also just being there to and talking it all throught with them and letting them know they are OK,” Rodriguez said. This is why for those at abortion funds like the Lilith Fund, the work continues to take priority over the threat of litigation — even though at this point, lawsuits seem “inevitable” since the state has “offered up this bounty and [litigation] doesn’t have to be based on anything.” The message from the state, she said, is obvious: “They don’t want us to be in operation, to help our community. That’s their goal and they are clear. But our goal is we will help Texans and we are clear as well.

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