The battlefields in front of Texas abortion clinics

Brut America

This abortion clinic is the last one standing on the Texas-Mexico border ... and it is just across the street from an anti-abortion center.   @maya.cueva.5 @OnTheDivideMovie #OnTheDivide

Transcript

00:00We'll shut this place down.

00:11I'll get every Christian in the valley to come over here, stand in front and block these

00:15doors."

00:16I'm a clinic escort at the Women's Health and we have some protesters.

00:31Leave her alone.

00:32Back away.

00:33Get away.

00:34Go away.

00:36Out of the way.

00:37McGowan Pregnancy Center is still open.

00:48Their target is women who are of the reproductive age who they think might be seeking abortions.

00:57Although they are able to provide services such as giving diapers and free ultrasounds,

01:04ultimately their goal is to stop a person from having an abortion.

01:08I think that often the way that mainstream media can portray it, the way that religion

01:16can portray this decision is just as this idea of killing a baby.

01:23No one can take life but him.

01:25Don't do this.

01:26For many people there might be health-related reasons, there might be reasons based, economic-based

01:33reasons.

01:35There might just be the reason of someone not being ready to have a child, or ready

01:40to have a baby.

01:43People seek abortions for multitude of reasons.

01:45The doctor says that you can't lose the baby, you can die.

01:59Thirteen clinics were forced to close, leaving just eight in all of Texas.

02:03The eyes of the world are on the border town.

02:05This is serving primarily Latinx people, Latinx population.

02:10And there's also patients that are coming in from Mexico and crossing the border because

02:16abortion is not accessible in Mexico.

02:19There's another facet to this issue within the Rio Grande Valley is that there's a number

02:24of undocumented people who, if this clinic were to shut down, the Holman's Health Clinic

02:30in McAllen, they would have to travel over 250 miles to get to the nearest clinic, and

02:36they would have to cross border checkpoints along the way, which means they risk deportation

02:42just to try to see a medical professional.

02:45What keeps us going is that, well, this is what the patients have to face, and they should

02:49not face this alone.

02:51This also has to do with what's happening around immigration and immigration rights,

02:58and just access to reproductive health care.

03:08I think what often happens within the abortion debate is that white women and white cis women

03:13are often put at the forefront, or their voices are often the ones that are getting the most

03:22light, and we're not thinking about this through a perspective of, say, a black or

03:28brown person.

03:29I would always make a point to ask them, what stories do you feel like aren't being shared,

03:33or what has been misrepresented about your community in the mainstream news media?

03:38And many of them would say, no one's ever asked me that before.

03:43Journalists come in here, they want a specific story, they want a story that will make the

03:47headlines, but no one asks us, what is important for us to share?

03:53So we do try to spread the word that we're here, and we're here to stay, and we're not

03:57going anywhere.

03:58This isn't just about abortion rights being stripped away, it is about reproductive rights

04:03in general, because we know what happens when one facet of reproductive rights is stripped

04:08away, others also get stripped.

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