Glad to see it, but I’m waiting for another shoe to drop.
Some abortion advocacy nonprofit groups have resumed paying for Texans to get abortions out of state after a court ruling last month.
These groups, called abortion funds, stopped paying for abortion procedures and travel to out-of-state clinics after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, citing confusion and fear of violating Texas’ intersecting abortion bans.
Virtually overnight, all of Texas’ abortion clinics closed — and the infrastructure that helped Texans access out-of-state care evaporated alongside them. Many of the people these funds work with likely could not afford to leave the state without their financial support, said Denise Rodriguez, communications director with the Texas Equal Access Fund.
“When we found out we had to pause funding, that was something that was really heartbreaking for everybody on our team,” Rodriguez said. “Now that we’re able to start funding abortions again, that’s what this organization was started for, so everybody is just excited.”
The Dallas-based TEA Fund provides Texans vouchers that lessen the costs of abortions at out- of-state clinics. Rodriguez said they have enough funding to assist anyone who calls in between Monday, when their hotline reopens, and June 24, the one-year anniversary of the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
Fund Texas Choice, a statewide group that assists with travel expenses, said on Twitter that they have reopened their hotline and are resuming limited practical support.
The Austin-based Lilith Fund has also reopened its hotline and is funding out-of-state abortions again, a spokesperson said.
Other groups are preparing to relaunch their funding mechanisms as well. This flurry of activity comes after a federal judge granted a temporary injunction in February, blocking a handful of county prosecutors from pursuing charges against anyone who helps a Texan access abortion out of state.
The ruling is not binding statewide, but it has reassured some groups enough to resume operations.
“All of it is so uncertain, but we’re going to fund abortions until we’re forced to stop,” Rodriguez said.
See here for the background. I fear this is what an economics professor of mine would have called an unstable equilibrium. Something will happen, either a ruling in an existing lawsuit, the filing of a new lawsuit, the passage of a new law in the Lege, some Presidential executive action, or something else like that, that will disrupt this. All things considered, I’d expect it to be something bad. What it is and when it might happen, I have no idea. I just don’t think what’s happening now will still be the case in, say, another six months or a year. I’ll refer to this post later when we find out.