Federal courts ruled against Republican-controlled states Texas, Alabama and Ohio, where officials ordered abortion providers to stop providing services during the pandemic.
“When we can’t access the health care we need, we’re denied freedom, safety and autonomy in our bodies and lives,” says abortion rights activist Marcela Howell.
Seven judges ruled that family planning centers cannot refer women for abortions and still receive federal money to care for lower-income earning women.
The law will benefit the students at public universities in the state, who are predominantly people of color and may face geographic and economic hurdles to obtaining the medical procedure.
“We believe that the Trump administration is doing this as an attack on reproductive health care and to keep providers like Planned Parenthood from serving our patients.”
In the first study of its kind, researchers looked at illness in people denied abortions compared to those who were able to obtain the medical procedure.
