The McAllen abortion clinic is packing up its operations as Whole Woman’s Health announced plans to relocate their clinics to New Mexico.
Following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, allowing Texas to outlaw abortions, Whole Woman’s Health announced Wednesday they would be closing up all four of their Texas clinics and seek to set up a new site in New Mexico.
“Whole Woman’s Health is packing up our clinics in Texas and moving to New Mexico – and we need your help!” Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health and Whole Woman’s Health Alliance, said in a news release.
To assist with their move to New Mexico, they launched a GoFundMe campaign to help fund the new clinic which will be located in a border town and will provide first and second trimester abortions.
“WWH has served Texans for nearly 20 years, and our love for Texans runs deep. Even when the courts and the politicians have turned their backs on Texans, we never will,” Hagstrom Miller said. “With the shuttering of our 4 Texas clinics, we do not have the financial reserves to open in New Mexico without community support. We are asking for your help as we vacate our Texas clinics, move our needed equipment and supplies, buy and renovate a new clinic building, relocate and hire staff, and set up Whole Woman’s Health of New Mexico.”
After the Supreme Court overturned abortion rights on June 24, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton declared that abortion was now illegal in Texas due to criminal abortion bans that pre-date Roe v. Wade.
Paxton also issued an advisory stating that prosecutors “may choose to immediately pursue criminal prosecutions based on violations of Texas abortion prohibitions predating Roe that were never repealed by the Texas Legislature.”
Whole Woman’s Health and other pro-abortion groups filed for a temporary restraining order to stop the enforcement of criminal ban which was granted by a judge in Harris County on June 28. Just a few days later, though, the Texas Supreme Court ordered that the abortion ban could be enforced.
In addition to their efforts to open up the New Mexico clinic, Whole Woman’s Health announced they would be expanding their Wayfinder program.
They launched the program last year after S.B. 8, which effectively banned abortions in Texas after six weeks of pregnancy, went into effect in September 2021.
Through the Wayfinder program, they helped people who were ineligible for an abortion in Texas travel out-of-state for an abortion by securing appointments, travel, funding, and other logistics. Now, the program will be expanded nationally, according to the news release.
