What Next - What It Takes to Get an Abortion in Texas
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Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 17 March 2022
⏱️ 23 minutes
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Summary
Last week, the Texas Supreme Court handed down a decision: Abortion providers can no longer sue state medical licensing offiicials to challenge Texas’ six-week abortion ban. Senate Bill 8, as it’s known, went into effect six months ago with ongoing legal battles in local, state and federal courtrooms. As abortion access is further restricted in the state, abortion rights advocates are doing everything they can to continue their work – including flying women out of state to get care – while navigating geographic constraints at the southern border.
Guest: Cathy Torres, organizing manager for Frontera Fund, an abortion fund for the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you pull out a map, the place where Kathy Torres lives, it's right at the southern tip of Texas. |
| 0:13.0 | We're right there on the bottom. |
| 0:15.0 | Like, so you're closer to Mexico than your state capital. |
| 0:18.0 | Oh, 100%. |
| 0:19.0 | Mexico's 30 minutes away and the capital is five hours away. |
| 0:24.9 | Kathy went to college here. Even though she graduated years ago, she still lives in the same apartment |
| 0:31.0 | right by the UT campus where she got her degree. I called her up to talk about what she's been doing |
| 0:36.5 | in the years since. How do you describe your |
| 0:39.6 | job to people when you first meet them? So if I don't know who they are at all, like, okay, |
| 0:49.5 | nail salon or something. Yeah. And they see I'm stressed. I don't know. Oh, where do you work at? |
| 0:55.7 | A woman's health care fund. |
| 0:59.9 | What do you do there? |
| 1:01.0 | Case management. |
| 1:02.6 | Oh. |
| 1:03.5 | It's like a nonprofit. |
| 1:04.7 | Yeah, yeah. |
| 1:06.3 | Okay. |
| 1:07.3 | So you keep it kind of private. |
| 1:10.1 | For my safety, yeah. |
| 1:12.1 | For your safety? |
| 1:13.9 | Yeah, I don't want to be stocked or accosted or sued. |
| 1:19.8 | So I'm pretty cautious. |
... |
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