In the New York Times, Kim Soffen explores how Texas’s abortion restrictions in the last few years have increased the distance to the nearest abortion clinic — and, if they’re declared constitutional by the Supreme Court, will likely serve as the template for gutting abortion access across the country.
With 17 clinics for the whole state, down from 42 in 2012, “the average Texas county is now 111 miles from the nearest clinic, up from 72 miles in 2012. This is substantially higher than the national average outside Texas, 59 miles, and more than triple the average in deep red South Carolina, 36 miles.” And if SCOTUS doesn’t step in to block them, seven of those remaining clinics will also probably be forced to close. That won’t significantly increase the distance patients have to travel but it is expected to increase the average cost of the procedure by 15 percent to $701.
And it will likely mean we see that swath of deep red in the middle of the country expand even more — particularly in the red states in the South and Midwest.
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