According to fresh numbers released for the first time, abortions in Texas decreased by 60% in the first month after the state passed the most stringent abortion law in the country in decades.
In September, Texas abortion doctors recorded roughly 2,200 abortions after a new rule went into effect prohibiting the operation once heart activity is found, usually around six weeks of pregnancy and with no exceptions for rape or incest. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission revealed the statistics earlier this month.
In August, more than 5,400 abortions were performed across the state. More data will be given on a monthly basis, according to state health officials.
The figures provide a more complete picture of the significant decline in patients described by Texas doctors in their clinics over the last five months, during which time judges have consistently permitted the limitations to remain in place. Some Texas patients have been forced to drive hundreds of miles to clinics in neighbouring states or even further away, producing a backlog of appointments in those locations.
Planned Parenthood issued a statement calling the numbers “the very beginning of the devastating impact” of the law.
The Texas statute is in direct contradiction with major U.S. Supreme Court rulings prohibiting states from prohibiting abortions during the first trimester, but it was worded in such a way that it has effectively circumvented those precedents.
Under the statute, any private citizen who brings a successful lawsuit against someone who performed or assisted a woman in obtaining an abortion after the limit, which opponents have described as a bounty, is entitled to receive $10,000 or more. So yet, no lawsuits have been brought by anti-abortion activists.
Abortion providers in Texas have admitted that the law is likely to remain on the books for the foreseeable future due to a lack of alternatives.
It comes as the Supreme Court of the United States has indicated that it is willing to weaken or reverse the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in a decision likely later this year.