Access Restricted: Abortion in Texas

Fault Lines travels to Texas to investigate why some women are taking abortion into their own hands.

Texas has passed some of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the U.S. By September, only six abortion clinics are expected to remain in a state that has 70,000 abortions a year. Fault Lines travels to Texas to find out what’s behind the legislation and how it is affecting women’s lives.

In this episode we meet a 23-year old woman named Melissa who self-induces an abortion because she lives in an area of Texas that no longer has any abortion clinics. She says it’s a financial burden to travel 300 miles round trip to reach the closest abortion clinic. Instead, Melissa traveled 30 minutes to Mexico where she bought a medication called Misoprostal. It’s normally used to treat ulcers, but she took it to end her pregnancy.

Fault Lines re-traces Melissa’s steps traveling to Mexico to find out how a woman in her position would acquire  Misoprostal without a prescription, examines what options are available to undocumented women who are unable to cross the border and live in areas with no abortion clinics, and speaks with advocates on both side of the debate over access to abortions in Texas.