Texas Abortion Ban: What to Know and How to Help

Texas has enacted the nation's strictest abortion law after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to block a challenge brought by abortion providers.

The law, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in May, prohibits abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity--usually around six weeks and before most women know they’re pregnant.

Senate Bill 8 (SB 8) also empowers private citizens to sue those involved in helping a pregnant person access an abortion, placing a $10,000 bounty on anybody who “aids and abets” the procedure--including medical staff, family members, or even the person driving a patient to a clinic.

(Texas Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, created a website where people can leave information anonymously about "aiding or abetting a post-heartbeat abortion.")

Now, millions of women in Texas have lost the right to choose, and access, safe abortion facilities. If you consider this law an attack on reproductive freedoms, here’s a list of organizations fighting for women’s rights in Texas:

Texas-specific Abortion Funds

1. Texas Equal Access (TEA) Fund helps low-income North, East, and West Texans seeking abortions. It also advocates for abortion access as a fundamental human right.
2. Fund Texas Choice helps women access abortion clinics by funding a bus ticket, plane ticket, or gas money. It also helps with hotel expenses.
3. The Lilith Fund, Texas' oldest abortion fund, provides direct financial assistance for Central and South Texans seeking abortions.
4. Jane's Due Process helps Texas teenagers who want an abortion, but can't obtain parental permission for one, apply for a judicial bypass (a legal process in which a teenager asks permission from a judge, rather than a parent, to get an abortion). It also helps cover abortion costs for teenagers getting judicial bypass in Texas.
5. Frontera Fund helps people in the Rio Grande Valley pay for abortions. It may also help cover the cost of an ultrasound (which is legally required by the state) and travel costs to an abortion provider.
6. West Fund helps people in West Texas and Juarez, Mexico, pay for abortions, including in cases when they have to travel from Texas to abortion clinics in New Mexico or Colorado.
7. Buckle Bunnies helps anyone in Texas get an abortion.
8. Support Your Sistahs Fund, run through the Afiya Center, helps Black-identifying people pay for abortions.
9. Bridge Collective helps Austin-area (within a 100-mile radius) people with childcare, in-home accommodations, and rides to abortion care.
10. Clinic Access Support Network helps people living in Houston or traveling to Houston for an abortion. It can provide a bus ticket, gas money, childcare, and rides to people seeking an abortion.
11. National Abortion Federation: This national pro-choice group supports abortion providers nationwide by giving them resources to keep staff and patients safe. It also supports patients via its toll-free, multi-lingual hotline for abortion referrals and financial assistance in the U.S. and Canada.

Advocacy Organizations Supporting Reproductive Freedom

These organizations are fighting to end anti-abortion policies and de-stigmatize abortion.

1. Avow: Avow — formerly NARAL Pro-Choice Texas — is an independent, Texas-based organization that organizes Texas voters to campaign for an end to anti-abortion policies in the state. It also has a political action committee (PAC) through which it works to elect pro-abortion public officials.
2. ACLU Texas, active since 1938, is a staunch advocate of abortion rights in the state.
3. Whole Woman's Health Alliance's mission is to end abortion stigma. The organization also runs a three-clinic network that offers abortion resources in Texas, Virginia, and Indiana.

Issues to Watch

• Within the state, Senate Bill 4 (SB 4) - which would bar access to abortion-inducing pills to patients who are more than seven weeks pregnant - is approaching final approval by the state legislature. Currently, these pills are available to patients until the tenth week of pregnancy.
• Mississippi is asking the Supreme Court to consider overruling Roe v. Wade in a case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health. The Supreme Court will hear arguments this fall. Depending on the Court's decision, precedent surrounding abortions could be altered.

—Lorelei Yang

(Photo Credit: iStockphoto.com / vichinterlang)