Texas Independent Clinics Fight to Survive Under Restrictive Abortion Law

For much of the past two months, Amy Hagstrom Miller said her abortion clinics have been brought to a standstill since Texas imposed the country’s most restrictive abortion law that cuts off access before most women know they are pregnant.

"It's like we’re frozen in time," said Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman's Health and Whole Woman's Health Alliance. "My staff has to say no all the time, which is psychologically and emotionally difficult because they are trained to see everybody, but under this law, they have to serve as agents of the state and deny people care.”

Complying with the near-total ban on abortion has dramatically decreased the volume of women obtaining care in the state. In September, the number of abortions performed in Texas declined 50 percent from the same month in 2020, according to the Texas Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Texas, Austin.

The U.S. Supreme Court seemed pretty skeptical on whether states could limit challenges to their laws - with justices wondering if the Texas abortion law SB-8 exploits a loophole. That could open up more litigation about the validity of the law overall, Florida State law professor Mary Ziegler explains. The main case that will shape the future of abortion policy focuses on Mississippi's abortion law.