Confirmed: Texas Never Needed All These Batshit Abortion Restrictions

Legislators nationwide passed a slew of draconian anti-abortion regulations this summer after successfully arguing that providers needed to adopt unnecessary and expensive renovations to protect ~~women~~ fetuses. A new Texas Tribune review of state inspection records confirms their protests were total, utter bullshit. If only facts had anything to do with the fight against reproductive justice.

From the Texas Tribune/NYT:

State auditors identified 19 regulatory violations that they said presented a risk to patient safety at six licensed abortion clinics that are not ambulatory surgical centers in Texas. None of the violations was severe enough to warrant financial penalties, according to the Department of State Health Services, which deemed the facilities’ corrective action plans sufficient to protect patients.

And between 2008 and 2013, the Texas Medical Board, which regulates the state’s physicians, took action against just three who performed abortions — all for administrative infractions that did not involve criminal practices or late-term abortions.

Most of the violations were minor administration errors that were quickly taken care of. But anti-abortion advocates don’t care, because the point of TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) laws has never had anything to do with safety, but about making abortion illegal.

Starting October 29, women in Texas won’t be able to get abortions past the 20th week of pregnancy. All abortion facilities will need to have a physician with admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles and, next year, they’ll be faced with more structural guidelines, like wide hallways.

Nine abortion clinics have already closed in Texas since January; one more has stopped providing abortions. Only six of the state’s 38 abortion facilities meet the needless structural requirements of ambulatory surgical centers, as now mandated by law. It’s unclear how many will be able to afford it.

Looks like it’s the black market for low-income women who already had a hard enough time terminating their pregnancy! Safety, indeed.