One of the leading American clinics is offering women affected by Hurricane Harvey, free abortions. Whole Women's Health, which is a well-known women's reproductive health provider, along with other organizations, posted the offer on its blog yesterday.
According to The Dallas Morning News, approximately 80 women have already accepted the clinic's offer or booked an appointment to undergo the procedure. The clinic said that travel, accommodation, and costs for the procedure would be fully covered by the clinic and its partners.
Nothing for free
A pro-life and anti-abortion group, Texas Right to Life dismissed the clinic's free offer and reiterated that there was nothing like a free abortion, as some form of cost was always involved.
According to Melissa Conway, who is the group's Director of external relations, who emphasized that the notion of a free abortion was a fallacy that women needed to wake up to. She added that the cost was not always financial, pointing out that there was a cost of an emotional burden that came with procuring an abortion.
Conway also stressed that the unborn baby was not free to choose life, and said the issue of a free abortion was, therefore, misleading. She also compared an abortion to the catastrophic effects of a Hurricane where the community ended up shouldering the costs of the devastation.
History of free offers
After Hurricanes Katrina, Ike and Rita, Whole Women's Health Clinic, also offered free abortions to the women from the areas the Hurricane hit.
To enable the free abortions, the clinic said that it had raised $15,000, which would cater for travel, accommodation, and cost of the procedure for one woman. The clinic also announced it planned to raise a further $40,000 so that it could extend the offer to more women.
The CEO of Women's Health Clinic, Amy Hagstrom Miller, told Dallas Morning News, that the state of Texas did not provide any safety net for women who required the abortion service, and that was the reason the clinic stepped in to fill the gap.
Miller also mentioned that some of the women who required the service had to travel for up to two days, and were in dire need of child care and travel support, which the state did not provide.
Legal battles
In the past, Women's Health Clinic has had its fair share of legal battles with the state of Texas, with the most recent being a suit the clinic filed against the state after a proposed law aimed at banning the termination of a second-trimester pregnancy.
The suit will be heard on November 2nd before a federal District Court.
