Three Texas abortion clinics — including both facilities in the Rio Grande Valley and the sole clinic in Beaumont — have permanently shut their doors in the face of strict state laws currently being challenged in federal court.
Whole Women's Health, a plaintiff in the lawsuit challenging a sweeping package of abortion restriction passed by the Legislature last summer, has closed its clinics in McAllen and Beaumont, company CEO Amy Hagstrom Miller said Wednesday night.
“It may have taken me a little too long to accept it ... because the need is still here,” Miller said. “That's what's so heartbreaking.”
Miller was interviewed Wednesday evening on Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC.
Dr. Lester Minto, who owned and operated Reproductive Services of Harlingen, the only other abortion clinic in the Rio Grande Valley, told the San Antonio Express-News he closed his doors after 30 years last week.
Minto stopped performing abortions in November after new rules requiring hospital admitting privileges went into effect and he was unable to secure them. Miller's clinic in McAllen also stopped performing abortions after a court ruling in late October.
That left both Rio Grande Valley clinics dependent solely on revenue from services like pap smears and pregnancy tests, which cast doubt on their future.
