On August 31st, Marva Sadler stood outside of our abortion clinic in Fort Worth, Texas,

ready to do her job.

And I met at 7.15 that morning with our physician who was 83 years old and we walked into the

building together that morning and he and I decided that we were going to turn our phones

off that we were not going to pay attention to what was happening in the courts and that

we were going to see every patient that we possibly could until 11.59.

Marva Sadler is the clinical director for Whole Women's Health, a reproductive health

network that runs for abortion clinics in Texas and operates a handful of clinics

in other states.

And at 7.15 that morning it was a joke that we made that statement that we were getting

here and we're getting it done and then about 6.7 o'clock we realized oh my gosh we're

really going to go into the very last minute and see as many patients as we possibly can.

Marva and her team were on a mission because August 31st was the last day before Senate Bill

8 went into effect.

The so-called Texas Heartbeat Act, Bands of Borshians after fetal cardiac activity is detected

in an ultrasound.

This is around 6 weeks before the heart is even developed.

With a very small staff, about a very mighty staff and that doctor and myself we were able

to complete 67 procedures that day and actually see over 50 follow-up appointments of patients

who had previously done the medication abortion but wanted to come in and ensure that the

medication abortion had worked because if it did in the next day no matter what the situation

was they were going to have to continue with those pregnancies.

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