How Flipping Roe v Wade Will Impact Texas Families


ARGYLE, Texas — Two days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a 27-year-old woman gave birth to her fourth child, a boy she named Cason. Born after his mother fled domestic violence and was denied an abortion, he is among the first of many post-Roe babies due in Texas.

“I love my kids and feel like a really good mom,” said Cason’s mother, who asked to be identified by her first initial, T. “But because of this pregnancy, I couldn’t provide for them.”

One in 10 people of childbearing age in America lives in Texas, which will soon join half of all states in banning nearly all abortions. Conservative leaders in Texas have spent decades restricting access to abortion while cutting social spending and publicly funded health care. Now, even some anti-abortion supporters say their state is sadly unprepared for a likely increase in births to poor women.

Reversing Roe “creates the sense of urgency that will now hopefully create the resources. But unfortunately, there is this gap,” said Aubrey Schlackman, founder of Blue Haven Ranch, an anti-abortion nonprofit that provides housing and other forms of assistance to T’s family.

“We want to limit abortions,” Ms. Schlackman continued. “But personally, we weren’t ready for an influx, and I know a lot of other nonprofits we work with aren’t ready for that either.”

Texas is one of the most dangerous states in the country to have a baby. The state’s maternal mortality rate is one of the worst in the nation, with black women accounting for a disproportionate share of deaths. The state’s infant mortality rate, at more than five deaths per thousand births in 2020, translates to nearly 2,000 infant deaths per year.

Texas chose not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which has contributed to hospital closures and the formation of rural health care “deserts” where obstetricians are scarce and even rarer prenatal care. More than a quarter of women of childbearing age are uninsured, the highest rate in the country. Medicaid covers low-income women during pregnancy and for two months after delivery, compared to 12 months in most states.

A Texas House proposal to extend postpartum coverage to 12 months was reduced to six months by the state Senate. Tens of thousands of children born to low-income parents languish on the waiting list for subsidized child care.

In September of last year, Texas passed Senate Bill 8, banning abortions for patients with detectable embryonic heart activity, which typically begins at around six weeks. A recent analysis by The Times suggests that the abortion rate in Texas fell only 10% after the bill passed as more women traveled out of state or ordered medical abortions by mail. . But poor patients often don’t have these options.

“Assuming that only 10% of women are unable to obtain an abortion, that represents a massive increase in fertility,” said Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, who studies the religious freedom, health rights and equality.

“There is no way there are institutions ready to meet this demand.”

Three years ago, T. was an accountant for a chain of fitness centers. At $36 an hour, it was the highest paying job she had ever had. She was proud to become her family’s primary breadwinner after her partner, who she had been with since high school, lost his construction job during the pandemic. But early in her pregnancy with Cason, she developed complications that eventually forced her to quit her job.

The family saved, moving into smaller and smaller homes until late last year when they finally had to move in with their partner’s mother. The couple were unloading their belongings, with their baby girl in her stroller nearby, when “he snapped at me,” T. said. Her partner strangled her, she said, until until she loses consciousness. When she was revived by a stranger, she had difficulty speaking and a ring of bruises encircled her neck. Terrified for her children, she fled the next morning to a domestic abuse shelter, she said.

She said she had never sought an abortion before. But the prospect of raising four young children and giving birth alone filled T. with despair. She was distressed by the needs of her three children and by the sacrifices. “If I do that, I’ll make sure they’re always good, always taken care of,” she said, remembering thinking.

“It was a very difficult decision, but I felt like it was a smart decision for me.”

Her sister drove her to Southwestern Women’s Surgery Center, an abortion provider in Dallas. But Texas had just enacted Senate Bill 8, and providers told T. she was about seven weeks pregnant — too late for an abortion in Texas. Could she go to New Mexico? In the waiting room, T. was sobbing. The trip was impossible. She had no money and so few childcare options that she brought her baby girl with her to the appointment. She knew nothing about medical abortion.

T. joined her sister who was waiting in the parking lot. She was sitting in the car, distraught, when an anti-abortion “sidewalk adviser” approached.

“‘You’re not alone. If you’re pregnant and need help, we can help,’ the sidewalk counselor told her, T. recalls.

“I just started crying,” T. said, “in a sense of relief.”

The next day, the woman T. had met in the parking lot guided her to Birth Choice, an anti-abortion pregnancy resource center located in the same office complex as the abortion provider.

Some anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers have come under scrutiny for misleading or misinforming women seeking abortion care. But then, “They asked me the perfect questions,” T. said of the Birth Choice adviser. “Am I okay? Are my kids okay? What did I need?

“Be careful, I had left everything,” she said. “They provided me with everything there: baby bag, nappies, formula, clothes for me. They even gave me some little clothes for my daughter and a toy,” T. said.

“Then my adviser comes back and says, ‘I found you a place.'”

The place was Blue Haven Ranch, based in Argyle, about 45 minutes from Dallas.

Blue Haven provides housing, help with household bills, job training, and financial and other counseling up to a year or more postpartum for pregnant women with existing children. Among Americans who seek abortion care, 60% are already mothers and half have two or more children. Most are in their late twenties and poor.

Ms. Schlackman, 34, a former dental hygienist, evangelical Christian and mother of two, founded Blue Haven in 2020.

She grew up believing that women seek abortion care for convenience. “Now I can understand why they chose him,” she said.

Ms. Schlackman asks women to attend group information sessions with a strong religious component at a community church on Monday evenings. Blue Haven does not ask for money from the government or anyone who might question its religious approach. It receives donations from abortion-rights supporters as well as opponents, Ms. Schlackman said, reading a note from one, who sent $50: “‘I don’t share your beliefs about abortion and Christianity, but I hope you will use your strength to encourage similar initiatives elsewhere.

Blue Haven supports five families and there are 12 on the waiting list. The cost is approximately $2,500 per family per month for housing and utilities, plus gas and unexpected household expenses. A Boston financier who inquired about Blue Haven and offered to help negotiate a deal on a used car for a mother with bad credit recently.

Currently, there is no ranch; families live in rented apartments. Mrs. Schlackman and her husband Bryan plan to buy a hilly plot of land outside Denton, Texas, and build a complex with small houses, a meeting house and a group kitchen, as well as open spaces and livestock for ‘agricultural therapy’.

Standing in the wheat field where she envisions the homes, Ms. Schlackman estimated she would need to raise $13 million for land, construction and three-year operating funds. After Roe’s cancellation, Blue Haven received $25,000 in donations in two days.

The emphasis on the Bible and the emphasis on Christian family ideals make some mothers in Blue Haven uncomfortable. But for T., the group offered a lifeline at a time when options were dwindling. On a recent Monday evening, she attended a group session while her children played in the pristine church playground, supervised by volunteer grandparents. Other volunteers prepared a community supper.

Blue Haven hosted a baby shower for T., and her supporters bought everything from a registry created by Ms. Schlackman. (T. chose a zoo animal theme for her son’s layette, in shades of blue and green.) When Cason was born, Mrs. Schlackman was there, caring for T. in the spalike birth center where she had delivered her own sons.

Blue Haven’s support will end approximately one year after Cason’s first birthday.

“The pressure is really strong,” T. said on a Thursday, four days after giving birth to Cason. “I have a year to rebuild my life while my body heals, and four children to take care of at the same time. It’s frightening. I try not to think about what will happen when I leave the program. I know I can be a great mother, it’s just, can I provide for my children, keep the children healthy and safe, and have a roof over our heads and food? »

She hopes, she says, to find another job as an accountant and eventually move into her own house.

She said she had a message for the Texas Legislature.

“You don’t know what’s best for a family, you haven’t protected me or my kids. I’m protecting my kids. Only a mom can know what’s best for her and her family. What if you going to force women to have all these babies that they are not equipped for, then you have to provide support to women and their children after the babies are born.

Earlier in the week, just a day and a half after giving birth, T. had something else to say.

“Women, all we really have is our dignity and our voices,” she said. “And you take them off.”

Erin Schaff contributed reporting for Argyle and Margot Sanger-Katz of Washington.