Reverend Erika Ferguson still has the text message from three years ago saved on her phone. She’d been counseling a young girl who wasn’t sure whether she wanted an abortion when Senate Bill 8 went into effect in 2021. The law is one of three overlapping statutes in Texas that together ban abortion in all cases except to preserve the life of the mother.
The girl didn’t know how to get a bus across town, let alone fly out of state for an abortion, Ferguson told The Nation. The reverend knew she had to find a way to help.
Since then, Ferguson and fellow clergy have quietly accompanied more than 100 groups of women seeking abortion on flights to New Mexico, where the procedure is legal. At a Dallas press conference Monday — the two-year anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion — Ferguson took the effort public.
“We’re making it clear that we’re not scared,” Ferguson said. “We’re making sure that every woman in the state of Texas that wants to fly out of the state and get the abortion care that they need, will have the accompaniment and support and care that they deserve.”
The Texas initiative is part of the larger Tubman Travel Project, a nod by Ferguson to the dangerous journeys once taken by enslaved people to free states. In partnership with New Mexico-based FaithRoots — formerly the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice — the group is one of several that have been supporting Texans traveling to “abortion safe haven” states. Fund Texas Choice and The Lilith Fund also offer financial and emotional support to abortion seekers.
The groups have long operated under the threat of legal challenges. The funds temporarily stopped paying for Texans to leave the state after Roe v. Wade was overturned out of fear of prosecution, but cautiously resumed when a federal judge ruled in February 2023 that they likely cannot be criminally charged.
Abortions in Texas have declined from an average of 4,400 per month before Roe v. Wade was overturned to just five. Out-of-state abortions, along with abortion pills obtained via telehealth, have partially offset the impact of the Texas abortion ban. Abortion pills are approved by the Food and Drug Administration through 10 weeks of gestation.
States like New Mexico have scrambled to increase services to meet the influx of abortion seekers from the nearly two dozen states that ban or severely restrict abortion access. Many have also bolstered legal protections for patients and those traveling with them. Senate Bill 13 shields providers and patients from civil or criminal liability for abortion or gender-affirming care in New Mexico.
While groups like the Tubman Project reaffirmed support for Texans seeking abortions Monday, antiabortion groups celebrated the Dobbs anniversary. Texas Alliance for Life pointed to the “vast resources” available to those with unplanned pregnancies.
“As we celebrate this anniversary, we reaffirm our commitment to building a culture of life in Texas — to make abortion unthinkable as we educate Texans on the vast resources and support available to help women and families in need,” Texas Alliance for Life executive director Dr. Joe Pojman said in a statement. “The more women become aware of the resources available, the less likely they will be to seek chemical abortion drugs trafficked illegally into our state, putting their health, lives, and future fertility on the line, or travel out of state to end the life of their unborn child through abortion.”
Though mailing abortion drugs is illegal in Texas, doctors in states like New York protected by “shield laws” can prescribe pills via telemedicine to patients in states where abortion is illegal. Antiabortion groups have long questioned the safety of the drugs. More than 100 scientific studies have concluded mifepristone and misoprostol, the abortion pills that are commonly used in the United States, are a safe method for terminating pregnancy.
A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling ended a challenge brought by conservative groups seeking to revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. The ruling had no impact on Texas’ ban on the drug.
In Texas, women have said the state’s abortion bans have led to delayed or denied care during medical emergencies because doctors feared running afoul of the laws. The Texas Supreme Court in May ruled against more than 20 Texas women who sued the state over abortions they said were delayed or denied during medical emergencies because of the state’s bans on the procedure. The case sought to exempt Texans with complicated pregnancies from the abortion bans.
The Alliance for Life and other anti-abortion groups have refuted accounts of the bans creating challenges for medical providers when treating pregnant patients.
“We can see that there are doctors in Texas who clearly understand that the law allows them to intervene to save a woman’s life,” Amy O’Donnell, communications director for the Alliance for Life, told the Texas Tribune. “Not a single woman has lost their life, and no doctor has faced any kind of prosecution, lost their medical license or faced any penalties.”
The Texas Medical Board adopted rules for doctors operating under the abortion bans last week in an attempt to provide clarity, though doctors have said they found the guidance lacking.
Nationally, the number of abortions rose slightly last year as states where the procedure is legal expanded care.