Abortion is mostly unavailable in Texas. Here’s what the state’s ‘trigger’ law will do

In 30 days, the Texas “trigger” law outlawing almost all abortions will take effect. Under the law, anyone who provides an abortion could face up to life in prison.

But for people seeking abortions, the medication or procedure has been effectively unavailable for weeks, since shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion access in June.

Can I get an abortion in Texas?

Abortion is already almost completely inaccessible in Texas. All standalone abortion providers in the state stopped providing abortions in the last month.

The Texas “trigger” law will enact criminal penalties for anyone who provides an abortion in the state. But effectively, most access has been eliminated since early July. The only legal abortions that can be performed in the state are in cases where the pregnant person’s life is danger.

What laws govern abortion access in Texas?

After the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in June, it left decisions about abortion access to be determined by individual states.

In Texas, there are multiple laws that regulate abortion access. Together, the laws make almost all abortions illegal in Texas.

The Texas “trigger” law goes into effect in August. Any person who performs an abortion commits a first-degree felony and could face life in prison and $100,000 in penalties.

Texas Senate Bill 8, which went into effect in September, also remains in effect. This law leaves enforcement up to the citizens, and allows anybody, no matter their relationship to the pregnant patient or abortion provider, to sue the abortion provider or anyone who assisted in the abortion for damages.

A third law outlaws the mailing of abortion pills.

Does Texas law allow for abortions in the case of rape or incest?

No. The Texas trigger law has no exceptions for pregnancies that result from either rape or incest.

The only exception is for when a pregnant woman’s life is in danger. Physicians and lawyers have said the language is vague, and could be interpreted differently depending on the doctor or the hospital where they work. After Senate Bill 8, which banned all abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, physicians said the law had created a “chilling effect” on abortion access, leaving doctors afraid to perform life-saving abortions out of fear that they could be sued. Experts and physicians have said state’s criminal ban on abortions will likely cause a similar effect.

What does this mean for abortion providers in Tarrant County?

Two standalone clinics are licensed to provide abortions in Tarrant County.

One, Whole Women’s Health, has said it will close its clinic in Fort Worth and the three other clinics it operates in Texas. The organization said it plans to move its operations to New Mexico.

Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas operates multiple clinics in Tarrant County. The organization has said it does not plan to close any locations, and that it will offer non-abortion reproductive health services, like testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections and contraception.

Will people still get abortions in Texas?

Probably. Historically, people have continued getting or trying to get abortions even when access has been made more difficult or outlawed completely. Although abortion won’t completely go away in the state, it will be much harder to access, particularly for women who are low-income.

Last year, when Texas enacted a six-week abortion ban, the number of abortions in the state dropped dramatically. In September 2020, there were 4,511 abortions in Texas clinics, according to state data. A year later, there were 2,164 abortions in state clinics.

But research found that many pregnant people turned to other sources: They either traveled to other states where abortion was still accessible, or they ordered medication abortions online.

One study looked at requests to Aid Access, an international nonprofit that mails abortion pills directly to individuals. The study found that in the four months after the new Texas law went into effect, requests to Aid Access from Texas nearly tripled. In addition to seek abortion pills online, some pregnant people are likely to travel outside of Texas to seek abortions.

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin looked at how many Texans traveled out of state for abortions, and found that an average of 1,391 Texans per month left Texas to access abortion in the four months after the six-week ban went into effect.

How many abortions used to happen every year in Texas?

In 2020, 55,175 Texas residents received legal abortions, according to state data. That number doesn’t include women who had illegal abortions, and probably includes only some of the people who traveled outside of the state for their abortion. That translates to a rate of about 9.5 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. Of those, 4,943 were Tarrant County residents.

Nationwide, the number of abortions has steadily decreased since it peaked in the ‘80s. But there was a slight increase in abortions between 2017 and 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute. In 2020, the nationwide abortion rate was 14.4 per 1,000 women aged 15-44, up from 13.5 in 2017.

Who gets abortions?

In 2020, 61% of Texans who got an abortion had already had one or more live births, according to the state’s data. A majority of women who get abortions are low-income, according to Guttmacher, which produces the most comprehensive survey on the demographics of people who get abortions. In 2014, the most recent year that income data is available, 75% of women who had abortions in the U.S. were low income ($31,302 or less for a family of two in 2014).

In Texas, 73% of people who received an abortion in 2020 were women of color, according to the state’s demographic data.

Can pregnant women be prosecuted for getting an abortion?

Under the state’s “trigger” law, a pregnant woman who gets an abortion or induces an abortion won’t be prosecuted, said the law’s author, state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, a Southlake Republican. But prosecutors in Texas have also brought criminal charges against pregnant people who have miscarried or gotten an abortion using other laws, such as child endangerment and distribution of drugs to a minor.

Eleanor Dearman contributed reporting.