Thursday was a momentous day for Whole Woman’s Health Alliance (WWHA) and abortion rights in the United States. For the first time in 25 years, abortion providers were invited guests of the White House – and I was honored to be among them. Vice President Kamala Harris convened a roundtable of eight providers, advocates, and patients from Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky, and New Mexico to hear directly about the impact of Texas Senate Bill 8 and other bans on abortion care. Moments before that meeting, the Department of Justice announced that it is suing the state of Texas over their monstrous abortion ban.
This is the first time I’ve felt hope in a long time.
Since I founded Whole Woman’s Health in 2003, I’ve had to navigate and fight back against a multitude of unjust and unnecessary abortion restrictions. Now, 18 years later, the White House is stepping in and making abortion access a critical priority. Listen to Vice President Harris’ remarks, where she commits that the Administration will use every possible tool of government to combat these laws.
In my address to the Vice President, I conveyed how SB 8 is breaking us financially and emotionally, and how it is hurting Texas families and communities. I also uplifted heartbreaking findings in this Turnaway Study.
SB 8 has been in effect for 2 weeks, and our clinic staff have already turned away more than one hundred people seeking compassionate abortion care. I am grateful to the Biden Administration for listening to us, respecting our work, valuing our patients, and taking steps towards justice.
Stand with us as we fight to keep our clinics open and overturn SB 8.