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Months before the U.S. Supreme Court leak revealed that the nation’s highest court was poised to overturn the landmark abortion case Roe vs. Wade, the Rev. Daniel Kanter was among the Texas faith leaders working to help those grappling with the state’s own restrictions on abortion.
In wake of Senate Bill 8, the six-week ban that went into effect on Sept. 1, some North Texas clergy have sought to help those in the region obtain abortions. The new Texas law was considered the nation’s most restrictive until Oklahoma enacted a tougher law last week.
For Kanter’s First Unitarian Church of Dallas, the history of abortion rights actvisim can be traced back to the beginings of Roe vs. Wade, which was decided in 1973. All along, the church has helped continue the tradition of providing a haven to those who believe abortion is a fundamental right.
Six years ago, Kanter created a multifaith chaplaincy program in which chaplains would go to Southwestern Women’s Surgical in Dallas to provide spiritual counsel and affirmation to those who obtained abortions there.
“I just transferred the in-clinic chaplaincy to the travel program,” Kanter said.
In December, he organized the first trip of 20 women to the facility’s sister clinic, Southwestern Women’s Options, which were both founded by doctor Curtis Boyd.
The travel program is for patients who qualified with incomes under the poverty line.
Some religious groups are often associated with opposition to abortion, but Kanter said that many church volunteers have written notes and baked goods to send with those taking the journey to New Mexico every month.
Boyd’s clinic in New Mexico Southwestern Women’s Options recently settled a wrongful death lawsuit for $900,000 in which a 23-year-old woman died in a multi-day outpatient process. New Mexico is a state that no restrictions on gestational age of pregnancy for elective abortions nor waiting periods according to the Guttmacher Institute.
The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice of New Mexico handles the logistics while Kanter and the other clergy focus on being there for those that want prayer or counsel.
“We’re going every other week right now mostly because the clinic in New Mexico is strained by another 20 patients on their schedule,” Kanter said.
Since December, the group has taken 20 women to New Mexico in trips arranged at least twice a month.
‘Spiritual support’
“Being a chaplain for these 20 people seeking abortions was one of the most spiritual, powerful, meaningful experiences of my ministry,” said Rev. Erin Walter, director of Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry who accompanied a group as chaplain several weeks ago.
The journey began at First Unitarian in Dallas at 5:30 a.m, the women were provided with “spiritual support,” then they departed for the airport, Walter said, adding that some of the women had never flown before.
After the flight, they were taken to the religious coalition facility for breakfast and preparation for appointments.
“In the afternoon, it’s, you know, resting. I prayed with some of them and just asked … to surround them in a sense of comfort and peace and to guide the hands and minds of the health care providers that they would be seeing,” Walter said.
The patients were provided with lunch, Walter said, and by the end of the day they were on a flight home to Dallas.
Most of those seeking help on Walter’s trip were women of color. Some were working their jobs on their laptops while others would return from the flight and head to their shift in a factory. Another was preparing to go to prom the next day.
Concerns are rising that the number of Texans seeking abortion in other states – or even in Mexico and other countries – will only grow if Roe is overturned, as expected, when the Supreme Court rules soon on a pivotal case from Mississippi.
The Texas Health and Human Services estimated that the number of abortions reported in the state decreased almost 60% in the first month after new restrictions went into effect last September.