Texas and Ohio Include Abortion as Medical Procedures That Must Be Delayed – The New York Times

The announcement in Texas on Monday sent abortion rights advocates and their lawyers racing to determine how likely it was that clinics would need to stop abortion services.

We are still waiting for various legal teams and local providers to work through what it means, said the Very Rev. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, president of the National Abortion Federation.

Texas has a history of being on the vanguard of reducing abortion access. The last major Supreme Court decision on abortion, in 2016, involved a restrictive law in Texas. But it was still not clear on Monday night whether the states abortion clinics would stop providing services. Some seemed determined to continue.

Patients cannot wait until this pandemic is over to receive safe abortion care, Amy Hagstrom Miller, president of Whole Womans Health, the abortion clinic at the center of the Supreme Court decision, said in a statement.

In Ohio, where anti-abortion activists have gained influence in recent years, health authorities issued an order to postpone all nonessential surgeries beginning at 5 p.m. Wednesday. On Friday and Saturday, the office of the states attorney general sent warning letters to abortion clinics in Dayton, Cincinnati and Cleveland, telling them to immediately stop performing nonessential and elective surgical abortions.

A spokeswoman for the attorney generals office, Bethany McCorkle, said the letters were based on complaints that had come to Ohios Department of Health. At least one came from Ohio Right to Life, an anti-abortion advocacy group, said its president, Michael Gonidakis.

In an email blast to supporters on Saturday, Mr. Gonidakis said he had sent a letter to Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, warning its president, Iris E. Harvey, that by performing surgical abortions, your company is putting the health and safety of all Ohioans in danger.

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Texas and Ohio Include Abortion as Medical Procedures That Must Be Delayed - The New York Times