BEAUMONT — The Whole Woman’s Health abortion clinic here has become an endangered species. It may not be around much longer.
Whole Woman’s Health, which serves mostly poor and black women, is the only abortion clinic in Beaumont. The next closest one is 80 miles away in Houston. Health care experts predict that most of the 42 abortion clinics in Texas, including this one, could close if the nation’s most restrictive anti-abortion law takes effect as scheduled in September.
Abortion rights advocates and their Democrat allies in the Texas Legislature believe the new law is unconstitutional. They’re vowing to fight the new statute in the courts, but they are fearful.
“I’m not saying it’s hopeless,” said Fatimah Gifford, a spokeswoman for Whole Woman’s Health. “But we feel deflated. How can this be happening in 2013?”
The law requires all clinics performing abortions to meet the health and safety standards of ambulatory surgical centers, which function as mini-hospitals with much larger treatment rooms and more complex equipment than most abortion clinics.
It would cost between $2 million and $3 million to retrofit the Beaumont clinic to meet those standards, Gifford said.
The threat to the Beaumont clinic is not academic. Planned Parenthood announced Thursday that it will shutter its clinic in Bryan, near Texas A&M University, rather than raise the money to meet the standards of the new law.
Anti-abortion groups argue that the law’s provisions are reasonable and will protect the safety of patients.
“All we’re asking for is better surgical care for women,” said Christine Melchor, executive director of the Houston Coalition for Life.
During legislative debate, the provision of the law that got the most attention wasn’t its litany of new physical standards for clinics. It was a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. That was true even though less than 1 percent of abortions now occur after 20 weeks.
Abortion rights advocates say the 20-week provision flies in the face of Roe vs. Wade, which held that abortions are legal even after 20 weeks if the fetus could not live outside the womb. That provision, they say, may be the one that leaves the Texas statute most vulnerable to a constitutional challenge.
Abortion opponents, however, contend that medical studies show fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks of gestation, thus the title that Republicans in Austin gave the new statute: the Preborn Pain Act.
Mandated changes
Whole Woman’s Health is housed in a nondescript tan brick building that might be mistaken for an insurance agency or real estate office, if not for the signs in the front windows.
One says, “Jesus Never Shamed Women.” Another refers to abortion protesters who confront pregnant women at abortion clinics. “Pray to end sidewalk bullying,” it says.
Inside, the color scheme is distinctly feminine. The walls are painted lilac. Light switches are purple. The lighting is dim to foster a soothing environment.
A brief tour makes it clear that the clinic is doomed unless the courts step in to stop implementation of the new Texas law.
Some hallways are barely 31/2 feet wide. The regulations for surgical centers say hallways must be wide enough to turn a 6-foot long gurney a full 360 degrees.
Operating rooms would have to be larger. Lighting systems — the clinic now uses fluorescents — would have to be more sophisticated. Air filtration systems and other environmental controls would have to be added. State health inspectors would require a whole new set of records, which would mean adding more staff to keep logs on things such as humidity inside the building.
Short of finding an entirely new location — and buildings that meet the standards of an ambulatory surgical center are rare outside big cities — “we would have to tear this building down to the studs and start over from scratch,” Gifford said.
Kansas doctor
In the waiting room, there’s a framed portrait of George Tiller, the Kansas abortion doctor shot and killed by an anti-abortion zealot in 2009. Many doctors who perform abortions say they fear for their safety. The doctor here declined to be interviewed by The Dallas Morning News.
The new law requires abortion doctors to secure admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion clinic. The stated purpose of that provision is to make sure the doctor could see patients for follow-up care in a hospital, should complications arise. That happens less than 1 percent of the time, according to state health statistics.
Many abortion doctors are older, semi-retired and don’t practice medicine outside their clinics. Hospitals usually extend admitting privileges to doctors who generate revenue for the hospital, and most abortion doctors don’t fit that profile.
The Texas Hospital Association opposed the new law as unnecessary, saying abortion is a relatively safe procedure. Any patient with complications could go to a hospital emergency room for treatment, said Stacy Wilson, associate general counsel for the association.
“I am concerned that we are mandating something that hospitals are not going to do,” she told lawmakers last month when asked about the hospital privileges provision.
The clinic doctor has admitting privileges at a Beaumont hospital, Gifford said. So, that hurdle may already be cleared in Beaumont.
How clinic operates
Whole Woman’s Health is just off Interstate 10, next to roadside cafes and a dry cleaner. The 2,000-square-foot clinic would need to double in size to meet the new law’s requirements, Gifford said.
A nurse’s station lined with computer terminals serves as the clinic’s nerve center. Two treatment rooms, a medical laboratory, a recovery room and administration office surround the nurse’s station.
Shaye Thomas, 26, is the clinic administrator. She is a single mother of three. Obviously, she favors abortion rights. But abortion also is her job. Standing next to the nurse’s station, she talked about the new law’s potential impact on her and five other employees.
“I only realized recently that our jobs are in jeopardy,” she said. “I don’t know what happens next. It’s all so unnecessary.”
An estimated 1,200 women get abortions at the Beaumont clinic each year, Thomas said. Most are women 18 to 26. They will pay between $300 and $500. The amount depends on whether the client qualifies for financial assistance.
“Most of them find us through Google,” Thomas said.
As she spoke, a patient emerged from a treatment room after her abortion. She was sobbing. A nurse, her arm around the woman, walked her to the recovery room. Her vital signs were good as she rested in a padded recliner for about 15 minutes.
And then she left the clinic, walking past a poster that said, “This is just one step in your journey.”
The patient had been pregnant longer than nine weeks. So, she had a surgical abortion. If she had come to the clinic by her ninth week, she probably would have opted to take the abortion-inducing drug RU-486. After users of the drug abort, they take a follow-up medication to promote clotting.
Under current law, they can take the pills at home.
Under the new law, they must take them in front of the abortion clinic’s doctor. It becomes a more burdensome process, involving four trips to the clinic: an initial consultation and sonogram to determine the number of weeks pregnant; ingestion of the first pill the next day; ingestion of the second pill the next day; and a follow-up visit with the doctor.
If the Beaumont clinic closed, women using RU-486 would probably have to travel to Houston, where at least one clinic meets the new law’s requirements. That would mean four round trips of about 160 miles each, or paying for three nights in a Houston motel, or finding some other place to stay.
“Just imagine the logistics and economic burden,” Thomas said.
As things stand, it appears that at least one abortion clinic in Dallas, one in Fort Worth, and others in Houston, Austin and San Antonio will survive because they meet the new law’s regulations.
It’s the clinics in smaller cities — San Angelo and Midland, Corpus Christi and Waco, Killeen and Harlingen — that appear to be in the greatest jeopardy. These clinics, according to their operators, don’t have the patient load to justify the financial investment needed to retrofit them. If the new law withstands court challenges, abortion rights groups say, Texans in rural areas will face long drives or flights to have abortions.
This is music to the ears of the Rev. Rodel Faller, associate pastor of St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Beaumont. Catholicism holds that abortion is tantamount to murder. The priest won’t be satisfied until legal abortions cease.
Outside St. Anne’s, a big red sign proclaiming the merits of adoption over abortion permanently adorns the sanctuary entrance.
Each January, hundreds of abortion protesters gather at the church and march a half mile to the abortion clinic for a rally and prayer service. In October, the church sponsors 40 days of prayer for life.
“If the clinic closes down, it will serve as a wake-up call that things are changing,” Faller said last week. “My personal feeling is that everything we’ve done through prayer is leading to victory.”
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