Today’s Undue Burden
By Today, Whole Woman’s Health in Austin, Texas, was forced to close because of H.B. 2, the Texas law that erected a series of barriers to providing abortion care in the state. On September 1, a provision of H.B. 2 that requires all abortions be performed in ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) will go into effect. Whole Woman’s Health of Austin, which has been serving Texas women for more than a decade, is not an ASC, and its lease was up July 31. Its annual license, which costs $5,000, was also up for renewal. But according to Whole Woman’s Health CEO Amy Hagstrom Miller, investing $5,000 for the renewal fee and signing a yearlong lease to stay open for a month simply did not make financial sense.