'We can't give up': El Pasoans reflect after Roe v. Wade overturned, end of abortion rights

El Pasoans gathered in San Jacinto Plaza Friday to decry the loss of a constitutionally-protected right to abortion that’s been in place for nearly half a century. 

Organizers announced the protest less than two hours after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 6-3 decision Friday morning.

The ruling will trigger a Texas law banning nearly all abortions in the coming weeks. Exceptions are allowed only if a pregnant person's life is at stake or if they face “substantial impairment” to a major bodily function. There are no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

Planned Parenthood in El Paso, the only local abortion provider, canceled its future appointments for pregnancy terminations on Friday along with other providers across Texas.  

At the rally, young women with fists dipped in red paint held up posters with drawings of coat hangers, harking back to a time when abortion was illegal and sometimes performed under dangerous circumstances. They stood on benches at the plaza in Downtown El Paso chanting, “Abortion is health care.”

Bonnie Daniels, a 65-year-old social worker, was a junior at Bel Air High School in 1973 when the Supreme Court issued its landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing most abortions nationwide. Before that decision, she recalls friends going to Juárez to end unwanted pregnancies in clandestine settings. 

“I didn’t expect, 49 years later, to be here having to protest,” Daniels said. “It’s a very sad day. My daughter called me right away. She’s a 35-year-old attorney in Los Angeles. She was crying. I just consoled her and said, ‘We can’t give up. We just have to keep fighting.’”

Families weigh religious beliefs with the right to choose

Abigail, 17, watched from the edge of the crowd in a glitter-speckled quinceñera gown wearing a tiara and false eyelashes. The COVID-19 pandemic delayed her coming-of-age celebration by two years. She was in the plaza Friday for a photo shoot with her mom and two sisters. The family declined to give their last names, requesting privacy to discuss their views on a polarizing subject.

“It’s really messed up that the government is trying to take (abortion) away from us,” Abigail said. “It’s kind of scary, if you think about it. What happens if one day we get raped, get pregnant and have to keep the kid of someone unknown?”

Her mother, Nora, 47, listened to her daughter’s words uneasily. Like many El Pasoans, Nora comes from a Mexican family with strong religious beliefs.   

“I’m against abortion,” she said in her native Spanish. “We shouldn’t end a life that comes as a blessing from God.”

When asked how she would respond if one of her daughters faced an unwanted pregnancy, Nora said she would ultimately leave the decision up to them and support them as best she could.

Abortion is still available in New Mexico

Abortion services are no longer available in El Paso. The local Planned Parenthood clinic will remain open, providing other forms of reproductive care, including pregnancy tests and contraception. Women’s Reproductive Clinic, 12 miles west of downtown El Paso in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, is the nearest abortion provider. The clinic only provides medication-induced abortions and does not accept insurance. The nearest clinic providing surgical abortions is in Albuquerque.

More:Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, trigger law to completely ban abortion in Texas

The number of Texans seeking abortions in New Mexico quadrupled to 1,700 in the last 10 months, according to Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains spokeswoman Kayla Herring. The increased demand happened after Texas outlawed abortions after six weeks of pregnancy last September. Ellie Rushford, with the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, said Friday’s Supreme Court decision will put further pressure on states such as New Mexico, where abortion protections remain in place.

“This is a public health crisis in the making,” Rushford said in a virtual press conference on Friday. “We are a rural state that does not have adequate access to health care in general.”

Across the international border, Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortion last fall, guaranteeing people the right to end a pregnancy without facing penal consequences. The decision didn’t make the procedure immediately accessible in Mexico, but it does require states to review their statutes and decriminalize abortion. Among Mexico’s six northern border states, only Baja California has decriminalized abortion.

Protesters at Friday’s El Paso rally eventually joined a jazz ensemble on the stage at San Jacinto Plaza. The musicians handed off the microphone to abortion-rights advocates and played a light background jam. A woman got on stage to announce the group had registered 20 people to vote in the first hour of the protest.  

More:Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade; here's what Beto O'Rourke, Gov. Greg Abbott had to say

Nearby, five Mexican American women, all friends in their early 20s, rested on the lawn behind the stage, absorbing what the day meant for their futures. One woman had already talked with her boyfriend about him getting a vasectomy; another is planning on getting an IUD (intrauterine device) even though she’s not sexually active. All the women said they doubted they could afford to travel out of state for an abortion.

“I barely graduated from college. I’m starting to get my life together, but I still live with my parents,” said 21-year-old Andrea Ornelas. “I feel like an abortion is already traumatizing enough for a woman, even if it’s for whatever reason. And with all these complications, it’s just going to be messy.”

Mónica Ortiz Uribe can be reached at monica.ortiz@elpasotimes.com

El Paso Times reporter Lauren Villagran contributed to this story.