In 2013, Texas passed one of the strictest abortion restrictions in the US. What has happened since, as this GIF from Molly Redden at Mother Jones shows, is a massive wave of clinic closings. Before the law passed, the state had 40 abortion clinics. Right now, there are 21 clinics in operation. But that number could drop to 6 in September, when a new wave of regulations takes effect.
Texas’ vanishing abortion clinics, in one GIF
(Scott Olson / Getty Images News)
In other words: Texas could have 85 percent fewer abortion clinics than it did three years ago.
The 2013 Texas law was the one that state Sen. Wendy Davis famously (and unsuccessfully) filibustered. That law had three main restrictions. It banned abortions after 20 weeks, as nearly a dozen other states have also done in recent years. Clinics are also required, beginning in September, to be certified as ambulatory surgical centers, and abortion doctors must have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles.
The law, House Bill 2, also puts new restrictions on how medical abortions (those done with a pill, rather than a surgical procedure) are administered in ways that require more visits to the clinic (you can read more about how that works here).
For many Texas clinics, these types of restrictions have proved too burdensome to comply with. “It’s heartbreaking for us,” Amy Hagstrom Miller, the chief executive of Whole Woman’s Health, told the New York Times shortly after her clinic closed this May. “It’s been a very difficult decision. I tried everything I can. I just can’t keep the doors open.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the year that House Bill 2 passed. It passed in 2013, not 2011.
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