(VESTAVIA HILLS, Ala.) — Two people were shot and killed and one injured Thursday evening at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, The Vestavia Hills Police Department said.
Police were alerted to the incident at 3775 Crosshaven Drive around 6:22 p.m.
Capt. Shane Ware said during a briefing that a lone suspect entered the church meeting and began shooting. Three people were shot and two died. Another person is receiving treatment at a hospital, Ware added.
(NEW YORK) — For more than a century, the Boy Scouts of America was a powerful institution aimed at empowering young people to make “ethical and moral choices.” But repeated lawsuits over sex abuse claims scouts say they suffered in scouting and the court-ordered release of decades of internal Boy Scouts of America records cataloguing abuse allegations led to institutional disgrace and bankruptcy.
The century-long-cover-up by The Boy Scouts of America to conceal pedophiles that were in their ranks and how their secret “perversion files” would eventually lead to the financial downfall and bankruptcy of the organization.
ABC News Studios partners with Imagine Documentaries and Vermilion Films to present “Leave No Trace: A Hidden History of The Boy Scouts.” The film examines financial records, court documents and firsthand survivor accounts to dissect a coverup of sexual abuse within the Boy Scouts of America.
After premiering at the Tribeca Festival on June 9, “Leave No Trace” is set to stream on Hulu and in select theaters on Thursday, June 16.
Stream the full story June 16 on Hulu
The Boy Scouts of America responded to ABC News about the film’s release and said they are “deeply sorry for the pain endured by survivors of abuse,” but the organization challenges aspects of the film.
“While there are aspects of the film “Leave No Trace” that mischaracterize the BSA’s policies and actions, rather than challenge these inaccuracies, our focus is on supporting survivors,” the organization told ABC News. It continued, “The BSA welcomes any opportunity for survivors to share their stories as part of the healing process, and we applaud the bravery and resilience of all survivors of past abuse in Scouting.”
The Boy Scouts of America still remains one of the largest youth organizations in the United States and reported approximately 2.1 million youth members and nearly 800,000 adult volunteers in 2019. At its height, the organization served over 5 million youths in 1979.
In 2012, the Boy Scouts of America was forced by a court order in a sexual abuse lawsuit brought by a former scout in Oregon to release over 20,000 pages of documentation of alleged child sexual abuse cases within the organization from 1965 to 1985.
The film investigates how the organization allegedly helped cover up the abuse cases and failed to report the allegations externally to police or other local officials.
In February 2020, the Boy Scouts of America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to offer “equitable compensation” to victims and their families, according to a press release.
Three months later, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware set a November 2020 deadline for all survivors of sexual abuse to file claims, according to a press release.
More than 82,000 sexual abuse claims were reportedly filed.
Earlier this year, survivors of sex abuse in scouting voted to accept a proposed 2.7 billion dollar settlement from the Boy Scouts of America as part of its reorganization plan. If approved by the bankruptcy court, it would be the largest sex-abuse payout in American history.
(EL PASO, Texas) — The U.S. saw the largest number of migrants arrested or encountered along the southern border since Customs and Border Protection began counting numbers of migrants encountered since the year 2000, statistics released by CBP, on Wednesday show.
CBP encountered 239,416 migrants along the southwest land border in May, a 2% increase compared to April, and 25% of those those encountered were previously arrested and deported by CBP.
The past four months, according to CBP statistics, migrant numbers along the southern border have increased steadily over 200,000 each month.
The amount of unaccompanied minors also saw a 20% increase from this month to last.
Drug seizures along the southern border were down in May in double digits, according to CBP.
“Our message to those who would try and gain illegal entry to the United States remains the same – don’t make the dangerous journey only to be sent back,” said CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus in a statement. “As temperatures start to rise in the summer, human smugglers will continue to exploit vulnerable populations and recklessly endanger the lives of migrants for financial gain.”
The numbers come as Title 42 — the Trump administration policy, continued by the Biden administration that expelled migrants along the southern border under the auspices of the pandemic, was ordered to be kept in place by a federal judge in May.
The Justice Department, which handles litigation for the federal government, has appealed the ruling.
“Current restrictions at the U.S. border have not changed: single adults and families encountered at the Southwest Border will continue to be expelled, where appropriate, under Title 42,” Magnus said.
(WORCESTER, Mass.) — A bishop has declared that a Massachusetts school “may no longer identify itself as Catholic.”
A bishop has declared that a central Massachusetts school “may no longer identify itself as Catholic” because it refuses to remove Black Lives Matter and Pride flags it began flying on campus last year.
Arguing that the flags “embody specific agendas and ideologies (that) contradict Catholic social and moral teaching,” Bishop Robert McManus of the Diocese of Worcester issued a decree on Thursday punishing the Nativity School of Worcester, a tuition-free private middle school that serves about 60 boys from under-resourced communities.
The decree prohibits the school from calling itself Catholic and prevents Mass and sacraments from taking place on school grounds.
In a statement, the school said it began displaying the flags in Jan. 2021 at the request of its students, the majority of whom, it noted, are people of color.
“As a multicultural school, the flags represent the inclusion and respect of all people. These flags simply state that all are welcome at Nativity and this value of inclusion is rooted in Catholic teaching,” said the school.
According to the school, when McManus became aware of the flags in March of this year, he asked the school to take them down. Later that month, an unknown person removed them, the school said, “[causing] harm to our entire community. The flags were later raised again.
In May, McManus threatened to punish the school in an open letter, where he claimed the Church is “100% behind the phrase ‘black lives matter’” but accused “a specific movement with a wider agenda” of “co-opt[ing] the phrase.”
The school said it would seek to appeal the bishop’s decision while continuing to fly the flags.
A spokesperson for the diocese did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — On Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump rioters broke into the U.S. Capitol. The attack resulted in deaths, injuries, more than 700 arrests and former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment.
Dr. Simone Gold, a leading figure in the anti-vaccine moment, was sentenced to prison Thursday for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The founder of America’s Frontline Doctors, Gold and her coalition of physicians have pushed conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine and promoted disproven treatments like ivermectin. She pleaded guilty in March to a misdemeanor charge of unlawfully entering and remaining in a restricted area of the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack.
Christopher Cooper, U.S. district judge for the District of Columbia, sentenced Gold on Thursday to a 60-day prison term followed by 12 months of supervised release, and ordered her to pay a $9,500 fine.
In an interview with The Washington Post in January about her involvement in the riot, Gold said that she “regrets being there.”
Gold did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
In March, ABC News reported that despite the warnings from health agencies about unproven COVID-19 treatments, several physician groups like America’s Frontline Doctors had partnered with telemedicine platforms and pharmacies to offer easy access to drugs like ivermectin.
A House probe launched in October is investigating America’s Frontline Doctors and other organizations for allegedly “spreading misinformation and facilitating access to disproven and potentially hazardous coronavirus treatments, such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.”
“Attempts to monetize coronavirus misinformation have eroded public confidence in proven treatments and prevention measures and hindered efforts to control the pandemic,” Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, wrote in a letter to Gold when the investigation was launched in the fall.
(NEW YORK) — Thousands of cattle in Kansas have died as a national heat wave scorches the U.S., leaving one of the country’s leading cattle farming states with a loss amid rising production costs.
At least 2,000 cattle have died as of Tuesday, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment told ABC News.
The cattle deaths happened throughout the weekend, as extreme heat and humidity persisted through Saturday and Sunday.
AJ Tarpoff, associate professor and beef extension veterinarian at Kansas State University, told ABC News that multiple factors led to the heat stress that caused the cattle to die.
“The temperature spiked, the humidity spiked, but the wind speed dropped,” Tarpoff said. “This is quite rare for this region of western Kansas, and it lasted for over one day.”
Tarpoff added that since nighttime temperatures were higher than usual, the cattle did not receive the normal cooling time they need to counter heat stress.
Scarlett Hagins, a spokesperson for the Kansas Livestock Association, said there was a 10 to 15-degree spike over Saturday night, which was a drastic jump in temperatures for the area.
“There was little wind, and the temperature didn’t really cool down overnight,” Hagins told ABC News. “The cattle just didn’t have time to acclimate because it happened so fast.”
Tarpoff said cattle are generally adaptable animals, but this weather event was particularly stressful because of the fast temperature change.
“Cattle are a robust animal; they can adapt to all kinds of weather all over the world,” Tarpoff said. “Some animals just did not have time to adapt [from the spring season] and some were still shedding their winter coats.” “Going forward, cattle can adapt quickly, as long as the wind keeps. It all depends on nighttime cooling hours and wind speed.”
Hagins said Kansas markets 5.5 million cattle each year, so while the loss of these 2,000 was unfortunate, this event should not affect market prices or the supply chain for beef.
“People shouldn’t worry about seeing beef on the shelves or seeing the price of beef go up,” Hagins said.
Hagins said ranchers in Kansas have mitigation protocols to deal with summer heat, which usually does not spike as it did over the weekend.
“Heat stress is always a concern, but there are mitigation protocols in place and we usually can protect against these kinds of deaths,” Hagins said.
Hagins said many ranchers make sure to increase water availability for cattle as temperatures rise, and also adjust feeding schedules for the animals.
“They will change what time they are feeding or what kind of food they are feeding the cattle so that they are not digesting during the hot hours because when cattle digest, their bodies get warmer,” Hagins said.
The cattle deaths come amidst a national heat wave that has nearly 100 million Americans under heat advisories.
U.S. residents from California to Pennsylvania face heat indexes nearing or surpassing triple digits.
For even the country’s hottest regions, such temperatures are abnormal for early summer, and extreme weather events persist among the increasing effects of climate change.
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — A federal magistrate on Thursday urged federal prosecutors to quickly decide whether to seek the death penalty for alleged Buffalo supermarket shooter Payton Gendron, citing the expense to taxpayers of defending a death-eligible defendant.
Gendron, 18, said at the U.S. District Court hearing that he has all of $16 to his name, prompting U.S. Magistrate Judge Kenneth Schroeder to assign him “learned counsel” — attorneys with experience in death penalty cases — from the Federal Public Defenders Office.
“This case has now been around for a month. I would hope the Department of Justice would undertake steps that would reasonably bring about” a decision whether to seek the death penalty, Schroeder said.
Prosecutors told the judge they will inform their superiors of his request, but noted no decision could be made before an indictment is returned.
Gendron made his first appearance in federal court, a day after U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the 26 federal counts against him and met with loved ones of the victims in Buffalo.
Schroeder read the charges and the potential penalties before declaring, “Those are the charges you are now facing as a result of this criminal complaint.”
Gendron gave mostly one-word answers to a series of questions involving his finances in order to establish that he’s eligible for court-appointed counsel.
“When was the last time you had gainful employment approximately?” Schroeder asked.
“A year,” Gendron replied.
Gendron allegedly “wrote about his acquisition of firearms, ammunition, firearm magazines, body armor, a GoPro camera, and other supplies for the attack,” according to the criminal complaint, but the document did not say how Gendron paid for the items.
The suspect is charged with 10 federal counts of committing a hate crime resulting in death; three counts of committing a hate crime involving an attempt to kill; 10 counts of using a firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a crime of violence; and three counts of using and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.
Gendron did not enter a plea to the charges.
“The Complaint further alleges that Gendron’s motive for the mass shooting was to prevent Black people from replacing white people and eliminating the white race, and to inspire others to commit similar attacks,” the Department of Justice said in a statement released Wednesday.
Gendron of Conklin, New York, which is more than 200 miles southeast of Buffalo, is accused of storming a Tops grocery store on May 14 and gunning down people outside and inside the market with an AR-15-style weapon that he legally purchased near his home, authorities said.
Garland said Wednesday that Gendron allegedly planned the massacre for months, including driving to the store to sketch the layout and count the number of Black people present.
Garland also revealed that at one point during the attack, Gendron allegedly aimed his Bushmaster XM rifle at a white Tops employee, who was shot in the leg and injured. He alleged that Gendron apologized to the victim before continuing the attack.
Gendron allegedly livestreamed part of the attack on the Internet before his feed was cut, according to the federal complaint.
Gendron was also indicted this month on25 state charges, including 10 counts of first-degree murder. He is also the first person in New York state history to be charged with domestic terrorism motivated by hate, a crime enacted in the state in November 2020.
He is charged in state court with 10 counts of second-degree murder as a hate crime, three counts of attempted murder as a hate crime and one count of criminal possession of a weapon. During his June 2 arraignment on the state charges, Gendron’s court-appointed lawyers entered a plea of not guilty to all of the charges on his behalf.
Emilee McGovern/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(UVALDE, Texas) — Several Texas school districts are requiring students to use clear backpacks in the wake of last month’s deadly shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde.
Ingleside Independent School District, near Corpus Christi, became one of the latest to announce the new policy this week, after its board of trustees unanimously approved updating the district’s dress code policy to require clear backpacks starting in the 2022-2023 school year.
“Safety is a top priority for Ingleside ISD and is on the forefront of concern for school districts across Texas and our nation,” the district said in a statement Tuesday.
The policy is also expected to aid in processing students through metal detector lines at its secondary campuses, the district said.
Several other school districts have also implemented clear backpack policies in the wake of the May 24 shooting, in which 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School were killed.
Harper ISD, about 90 miles northwest of San Antonio, announced earlier this month that it will implement a clear backpack policy for students starting in the fall “in light of the recent school shooting, and in an effort to do everything we can to increase safety for our students and staff.”
Two local businesses donated a backpack for every student in the district.
Greenville ISD, located about 45 miles northeast of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, also said it will require clear backpacks starting in the fall, among other safety measures. The policy is a “common-sense measure is becoming more common at both school and public events,” the district said.
Additional security measures announced this month include having one front access point for entry and requiring that all classroom doors remain locked at all times, the district said.
The new measures also came a month after a fake pipe bomb was found at the district’s high school. The school was evacuated and a juvenile was taken into custody over the incident, school officials said.
Clear backpacks have become common in the wake of school shootings. Several other Texas school districts already require them among their security measures.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, temporarily required its students to use clear backpacks after a deadly 2018 shooting on campus. Some students questioned the policy’s effectiveness and raised privacy concerns at the time.
Oxford Community Schools in Michigan also required clear backpacks after four students were fatally shot in a mass shooting at Oxford High School last year.
Following the massacre at Uvalde, in which the shooter entered the school through an unlocked door, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott suggested that schools conduct weekly door checks, among other security measures. He also requested that state lawmakers convene special legislative committees to make recommendations on school safety, among other areas.
Lowell Police Department via John Guilfoil Public Relations
(LOWELL, Mass.) — The search for a missing 3-year-old Massachusetts boy who vanished from his babysitter’s backyard ended Wednesday afternoon with the grim discovery of the child’s body in a pond, authorities said.
The body of the toddler, identified by authorities as Harry Kkonde, was found in a pond at a Christmas tree farm 650 feet from the babysitter’s home in Lowell, about 30 miles northwest of Boston, Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said at news conference.
“I want to be clear that we have no idea how Harry came to reach that pond, where he might have been or how long it might have taken him to reach that pond,” Ryan said.
The child was reported missing at about 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday. Police said a search for the boy was immediately launched.
Lowell Police Acting Superintendent Barry Golner said earlier Wednesday that investigators had found no evidence suggesting foul play in the boy’s disappearance.
About 200 law enforcement officers were involved in the search Wednesday, including K-9 units, divers, drone operators, helicopter crews and officers on horseback and all-terrain vehicles, police said.
“This is obviously every parents’ worst nightmare: a child who disappears for a very short period of time, the excruciating hours of the search and then the recovery of his body,” Ryan said.
The boy was found in roughly 5-feet of water near the edge of the murky pond that divers searched on Tuesday, ABC affiliate station WCVB in Boston reported.
Volunteer searcher Kylie Bouley told WCVB that she was looking for Harry in a cornfield near the pond when the boy’s body was discovered.
“I was looking for him in the cornfield and all I heard is, ‘He’s gone. He’s in the pond. We’re going to take him out. Please get out of the cornfield,'” Bouley said.
Harry was last seen wearing a long-sleeve maroon shirt and gray pants with a white stripe, police said.
“He’s active. He likes going outside. When he’s at home, he goes to the yard and plays. He’s a healthy kid but he can’t speak. He’s trying to learn how to speak, but he can’t talk,” Harry’s father told WCVB in a phone interview prior to his son’s body being discovered.
Upon getting the call of the missing child, officers went to the babysitter’s home in the Pawtucketville section of northwest Lowell and immediately began searching the neighborhood. When they found no sign of the boy, they expanded the search to the nearby Lowell-Dracut-Tyngsboro State Forest and the Merrimack River.
The child’s parents dropped him off at his babysitter’s house at about 7 a.m. Tuesday, police said. At least one neighbor saw the child playing in his babysitter’s backyard around 9:15 a.m., police said.
Lowell police notified the community of the missing boy on Tuesday by using a reverse 911 system to contact residents and asked them to call the police immediately if they believe they had seen the boy or had information about his whereabouts.
(NEW YORK) — Down a dirt road, inside a church in Dallas, Texas, the cellphone of Zuleka Edwards buzzes constantly.
“I was just trying to seek termination of a pregnancy,” one caller tells Edwards, abortion coordinator for The Afiya Center, the only Black-women-led abortion fund in North Texas. “I just need some assistance, OK, if that’s possible.”
Edwards gives the caller information about scheduling an appointment at an abortion clinic, explaining that even though she has already had an ultrasound, she’ll be required to get another under Texas law.
“If you have any questions, just reach out and I’ll be able to assist you,” Edwards ends the call.
It’s a conversation Edwards says she has multiple times a day with women throughout Texas who are trying to access abortion care in a state with one of the most extreme abortion laws in the country.
The phone calls, according to Edwards, have come with increasing frequency and urgency since September, when that law, Senate Bill 8, took effect in Texas, banning nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Before the law, abortions up to 22 weeks of pregnancy were allowed in Texas, with restrictions.
“Sometimes there’s just not enough time in the day,” said Edwards, whom ABC News saw taking calls from women in need while doing laundry at home and caring for her three kids.
Edwards, 35, said she never turns down a woman’s request for help because she knows personally what they are going through. The Texas native got her first abortion at the age of 17, a decision she said she felt “forced” into by her mom and one she said for years filled her with shame.
After going on to give birth to three children and get married, Edwards had a second abortion in Dallas.
At the time, Edwards said she was suffering from postpartum depression after the birth of her third child and knew she and her husband did not have the financial resources to raise a fourth.
“I knew for sure that whatever I was going to do, it was going to be what I needed to do,” Edwards said. “It wasn’t going to be from shame.”
‘Texas is already a post-Roe world’
Texas is known for doing everything bigger, and that has included the fight over abortion.
“We do the bad, the wrong stuff better. We do the great stuff better,” said Marsha Jones, founder of The Afiya Center, which helps provide women with funding and logistics for abortion care. “So there’s nothing bigger than here.”
After years of chipping away at abortion rights, Texas in 2013 enacted strict requirements on abortion clinics, including that abortion providers have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. By the time the measure was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2016, the number of abortion clinics in the state had shrunk from around 40 to 19.
Since last year, when SB8 went into effect, those remaining clinics have only been allowed to provide abortions before “cardiac activity or the steady and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart” can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. The law includes an exception for medical emergencies but makes no exceptions for pregnancies due to rape or incest.
The result of SB8, according to abortion rights advocates on the ground, is that Texas for nearly the past year has been operating as a sort of test case for a post-Roe America, a version of the country if Roe v. Wade — the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that declared abortion a protected right — is overturned, as is expected to happen based on a draft court opinion leaked in early May.
If the Supreme Court rules, as expected, in favor of a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks, abortion will go from being a federally protected right to one decided by each state.
“For those of us here in Texas, that’s already been our reality,” said Paige Alexandria, an Austin-based hotline intake counselor for the National Abortion Federation. “We’re already living in a time where most people can’t access the care they need in their own city, where they have to travel out of state.”
Each month since SB8 went into effect, around 1,400 Texans have gone to another state for abortion care, according to Dr. Kari White, lead investigator of the Texas Policy Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
“Given what we’ve been seeing in Texas, I think it’s safe to say we’re already living in a post-Roe world,” said Sarah Lopez, client coordinator for Jane’s Due Process, an Austin-based abortion fund that helps kids under the age of 18 who need access to abortion care. “Not just with all the restrictions, but really the impact that those restrictions have on people, forcing them to flee their state to access abortion care.”
‘Feels like everything is on fire every single day’
With nearly all abortions banned after six weeks of pregnancy, the demand for abortions has not decreased in Texas, according to Alexandria, Lopez and nearly one dozen other abortion rights advocates ABC News spoke to in the state.
“Regardless of circumstance or zip code or income, people are always going to need abortions,” said Lopez, who herself had an abortion in her home state of Texas after graduating college. “Whichever ban is in place, I think it just makes the process more risky, more arduous, you know, it makes it far more confusing, far more stigmatizing.”
She said being an abortion rights advocate in Texas often feels “like everything is on fire every single day.” In Austin, Alexandria said her day is consumed by an endless stream of calls from women in Texas seeking financial or logistical help for an abortion.
“Most of the people that I’m speaking to on the hotline are already parents, just like most people who have abortions,” said Alexandria, who was a mom of two when she got an abortion. “They’re struggling to find child care and the time to take off of work without making it more difficult financially to afford the procedure that they need.”
In the U.S., nearly 60% of all women who obtain abortions are already mothers, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research organization.
Qiana Lewis-Arnold, a birth justice associate with The Afiya Center, described the center’s workload as having “quadrupled” in the wake of SB8.
“The obstacles are just overwhelming, not just for the folks who are seeking abortions, but for the folks like us who are working with them,” she said. “This has created more obstacles, more stigma surrounding abortion and a lot of unnecessary fear.”
The anecdotal evidence of this is backed by data showing that with SB8 in place, the number of abortions has not dropped dramatically, according to White’s research. Instead, many women have resorted to traveling hundreds of miles out of state — as far as Maryland, Illinois and Washington state — or to ordering abortion pills online, if they are able to do so.
With increasingly limited access, a network of abortion funds — nonprofit organizations that provide funding and support to those seeking an abortion — has stepped in to fill the void.
The funds often cover a portion or all of the cost of the abortion itself — which can be hundreds of dollars in some cases — as well as practical care, including things like translation services, gas, hotel stays and child care.
“Texas is huge and there are abortion funds in basically every region of Texas,” said Lopez. “So there’s just been a lot of really cross-regional support that’s had to happen, and a lot of collaboration, a lot of creativity.”
Across the country, there are 92 abortion funds — as of October 2021 — that are members of the National Network of Abortion Funds, which helps connect organizations nationwide.
In the 72 hours after the Supreme Court draft opinion leaked in May, the network reported receiving more than $1.5 million in donations.
“The collaboration and the interconnectedness of abortion funds, I think that is a future of reproductive justice,” said Lopez. “It’s where we all work together and make sure that people have what they need.”
Who gets abortions with restricted access, and how
If Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court, nearly half of the nation’s 50 states are prepared to ban all or nearly all abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Texas is one of 13 states that put a so-called trigger law in place to immediately ban abortion if the Supreme Court allows it. So if the court overturns Roe in its upcoming ruling, performing an abortion at any time after conception in Texas would be a felony.
With that ban in place, the distance women in Texas would have to travel to access abortion care would increase by 3,017%, according to the Guttmacher Institute. While New Mexico and Kansas would become the closest states that allow abortion, many Texans would likely have to travel even further because of the increased demand and wait times at abortion clinics in those states.
Already under SB8, abortion clinics in states surrounding Texas, including New Mexico, Kansas and Oklahoma — which has since enacted its own abortion ban — have reported being overwhelmed with patients.
In Kansas — where the state capital is nearly 700 miles away from Texas’ capital — residents will vote in August on an amendment to change Kansas’ constitution to remove abortion as a protected right.
Abortion restrictions’ impact on maternal mortality
With increasing restrictions in states and the prospect of Roe being overturned, abortion is likely to be accessible only in certain regions of the country, meaning people seeking abortions will have to travel further for care, at a greater cost and very possibly at a later stage in pregnancy due to both travel and wait times at a limited number of abortion clinics, according to White, of the University of Texas at Austin.
With abortion funds’ limited financial resources to help women as well as the inability of all women to travel, the impact, according to those on the ground in Texas who say they have already seen it happen, is that abortion becomes even more unequally accessible.
“The people who suffer the worst from abortion bans are the people who are always the most impacted,” said Alexandria. “Black and brown folks, indigenous folks, trans and queer communities, immigrants, children, parents, students, all of these people are the first to feel the impact of these restrictions.”
At The Afiya Center, which offers doula services in addition to abortion support, the residual impacts of abortion restrictions they see include high maternal mortality rates, high levels of childhood poverty and poor health rates, especially for Black women.
Texas has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country and Black women in the state are “disproportionately” affected, accounting for 11% of live births but 31% of maternal deaths, according to a 2020 report from the state’s Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee.
“It’s actually safer to have an abortion in Texas than to have a baby,” said D’andra Willis, doula services coordinator for The Afiya Center.
In the U.S., two women were reported to have died following complications from legal-induced abortions in 2018, the latest year for which data is available. That same year, 658 women were reported to have died due to complications from pregnancy or childbirth, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Willis said that for Black women like herself, the right to abortion means the right to make a life-saving decision for themselves.
“It’s just more than ‘my body, my choice,’ when it’s my life. My life is on the line,” said Willis, adding, “To be faced with Roe v. Wade being overturned, it’s just going to increase maternal mortality. It’s going to further perpetuate generational poverty. Access to health care is going to get even worse than it already is.”
‘Our work here becomes even more important’
Around 200 miles away from The Afiya Center, in Pflugerville, a city outside of Austin, Brittany Green, executive director of the Pflugerville Pregnancy Resource Center, stands in the center’s baby boutique, which provides clothes and baby supplies for moms who have decided to carry their pregnancies to term.
Across the country, pregnancy resource centers — nonprofit organizations that aim to support women on the path to parenthood — outnumber abortion clinics three to one, data shows.
In Texas, which has more pregnancy resource centers than any other state, the Pflugerville center is one of around 200 such centers.
“The vast majority of the activity in the pro-life movement is really these hundreds of pro-life pregnancy centers and maternity homes who are designed to help women, and help them long after the baby is born,” said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life, an Austin-based organization that opposes abortion, adding that he hopes Texas serves as an “example for the rest of the country.”
“For those women who seek abortion out of state in border states or beyond, it breaks my heart,” said Pojman. “It breaks all our hearts in the pro-life movement because Texas has such vast resources for women with unplanned pregnancies.”
Last year, the Texas Legislature directed $100 million in state funding over two years to Alternative to Abortions, a state-run program that was launched nearly 20 years ago with the purpose of “promoting childbirth” and providing support to pregnant women, according to the state’s health department.
The program, which provides funding to local pregnancy resource centers and subcontractors, served over 126,000 clients in 2021, according to Texas Health and Human Services.
Pflugerville’s pregnancy resource center, based in a small house down a side street, is privately funded, relying primarily on donations from individuals and local churches, according to Green.
The mostly volunteer-run center hums with a sense of urgency as they await the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“Power will come back to Texas and we’ll be able to eliminate abortion here,” Green said of what she believes will happen if Roe is overturned. “But women are still going to feel ashamed. They’re still going to need help and they’re still going to need resources, so our work here becomes even more important.”
Green said the center has experienced an increase of what she calls “abortion-minded” women since SB8 went into effect in Texas.
“The good thing with the bill is it actually slows down their decision-making time,” said Green. “So now that women are having to go outside of Texas to seek an abortion, it actually opens up the doors for us to talk about how desperate are you to terminate this pregnancy. And is it worth going the extra miles, is it worth paying additional money to have an abortion?”
According to Tere Grace, the center’s sonographer, women are coming in earlier and earlier in their pregnancies.
“Before SB8, we were seeing people that were coming in at 12 weeks, 14 weeks, 18 weeks, pretty much when women had the window for legal abortion and still hadn’t processed how they wanted to do it,” said Grace. “Now we’re seeing babies much much younger than that, sometimes 4 or 5, 6 weeks old because they want to beat that ‘deadline’ of the heartbeat.”
She continued, “Finding the heartbeat is really important to us because we want to speak truth, ‘There’s a heartbeat here.'”
Supporters of SB8, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, call SB8 the “heartbeat bill.” Medical doctors say using the word heartbeat is “clinically inaccurate.”
According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), there cannot be a heartbeat at an early stage of pregnancy because the chambers of the heart are not developed. Instead, the sound is what ACOG describes as the “ultrasound machine translating electronic impulses that signify fetal cardiac activity.”
Like most pregnancy resource centers across the country, Green says the one in Pflugerville does not “ever encourage a woman to seek abortion.”
“Our goal is to help them choose life,” she said of the center, which offers free sonogram services and pregnancy tests as well as education classes expectant women can take to earn points that they can then spend as money in the center’s baby boutique.
Tiffany Turner, a single mom of two from Round Rock, Texas, came to the Pflugerville Pregnancy Resource Center last year when she became pregnant while finishing graduate school to become a physician assistant.
“I didn’t have much support at all,” Turner said while holding her infant daughter, River, adding that she found the support she needed as soon as she walked into the center, which she said she found by searching for help online.
“They started giving me diapers from the week that I came,” said Turner. “And every week I would come and do Bible studies and classes, and they helped me through delivering her, and then three weeks postpartum, they started again.”
Turner said she continues to come to the resource center for clothes for River and supplies like diapers. According to Green, the center helps women through a child’s second birthday.
“We want our parents to leave feeling successful and that they can parent without support after us,” said Green. “If it is a situation where they still need continuing support, we’re actually going to refer them to another pregnancy center that can meet the need up until the child is 5.”
If Roe v. Wade is overturned and abortion becomes even harder to access across the country, abortion rights advocates say they fear there will not be enough support for women and children in the long-term.
Advocates like Edwards, of The Afiya Center, said they see their work post-Roe being even more focused on what they see as the root causes of the need for abortion, addressing issues like poverty, domestic violence and lack of access to health care and contraception.
“If you really want to help people, then find out what the underlying issues are,” said Edwards. “Help people get out of that predicament, and it’ll prevent people from being in this predicament.”
