A little over a year ago, there were 41 places where you could obtain an abortion in Texas, but tomorrow morning there will only be seven. The legal battle over the state’s restrictive abortion law, which requires abortion clinics to meet the standards of hospital-style surgical centers, has dragged on for more than a year, and on Thursday a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law can be enforced immediately. The decision could be reversed, but in the meantime there will be no abortion facilities open west or south of San Antonio, and it’s estimated that about one in six Texas women seeking an abortion will live more than 150 miles from a clinic. “This is nowhere near a ‘large fraction,’” the court wrote. You know, unless you’re a woman on the wrong side of that equation.
