ARGYLE, Texas – Two days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a 27-year-old woman gave birth to her fourth child, a boy she named Cason. Born after his mother fled domestic violence and was refused an abortion, he is one of the first of many post-deer babies expected in Texas.
“I love my kids and I feel like I’m a really good mother,” said Cason’s mother, who asked to be identified by her first initial, T. “But this pregnancy prevented me from taking care of them.”
One in ten people of childbearing age in America lives in Texas, which will soon join half of all states in banning nearly all abortions. Texas conservative leadership has for decades narrowed access to abortion while cutting social spending and publicly funded health care. Now, even some anti-abortion supporters say their state is hopelessly unprepared for a likely rise in births among poor women.
Overthrowing Roe “creates the sense of urgency that now, hopefully, the resources will create. But unfortunately there is that gap,” said Aubrey Schlackman, founder of Blue Haven Ranch, an anti-abortion nonprofit that provides housing and other assistance to T.’s family.
“We want to limit abortions,” Ms Schlackman continued. “But personally, we weren’t ready to handle an influx, and I know so many of the other nonprofits we work with aren’t ready for that either.”
Texas is one of the most dangerous states in the country to have a baby. The state’s maternal mortality rate is one of the worst in the country, with black women accounting for a disproportionate share of deaths. The state’s infant mortality rate, with more than five deaths per thousand births in 2020, translates to nearly 2,000 infant deaths per year.
Texas chose not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, which has led to hospital closures and the creation of “deserts” for rural health care, where obstetricians are scarce and prenatal care even scarcer. More than a quarter of women of childbearing age are uninsured, the highest percentage in the nation. Medicaid covers low-income women during pregnancy and for two months after giving birth, compared to 12 months in most states.
A proposal in the Texas House to extend postpartum coverage to 12 months was reduced to six months by the state Senate. Tens of thousands of children of low-income parents languish on the waiting list for subsidized childcare.
Last September, Texas passed Senate Bill 8, a ban on abortion for patients with detectable embryonic heart activity, which generally begins after about six weeks. A recent analysis from the Times suggests that abortion rates in Texas fell just 10 percent after the law was passed, as more women traveled out of the state or ordered drug abortions by mail. But poor patients often don’t have those options.
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“Assuming only 10 percent of women can’t have an abortion, that’s a huge increase in fertility,” said Elizabeth Sepper, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies religious freedom, health law and equality.
“There’s no way institutions are willing to meet that demand.”
Three years ago, T. was an accountant at a chain of fitness centers. At $36 an hour, it was the highest paying job she’d ever had. She was proud to become her family’s main breadwinner after her partner, with whom she has lived with since high school, lost his construction job during the pandemic. But early in her pregnancy with Cason, she developed complications that eventually forced her to quit her job.
The family cut back and moved into smaller and smaller houses until late last year, when they finally had to move in with her partner’s mother. The couple was unloading their belongings, with their daughter in her stroller nearby, when “it bit me,” T said. Her partner strangled her, she said, until she lost consciousness. When she was revived by a stranger, she had difficulty speaking and a ring of bruises around her neck. Terrified for her children, she fled to a shelter for victims of domestic violence the next morning, she said.
She said she had never requested an abortion before. But the prospect of raising four young children on her own and giving birth alone filled T. with despair. She was concerned about the needs of her three children and about sacrifices. “If I do this, I’ll make sure they’re always good and they’re always well taken care of,” she said, remembering thinking.
“It was a very difficult decision, but I felt it was a smart one for me.”
Her sister drove her to the Southwestern Women’s Surgery Center, an abortion clinic in Dallas. But Texas had just passed Senate Bill 8, and health care providers told T. she was about seven weeks pregnant — too far advanced for an abortion in Texas. Could she travel to New Mexico? In the waiting room T sobbed. The journey was impossible. She had no money and so few childcare options that she took her daughter with her to the appointment. She knew nothing about drug abortion.
T. rejoined her sister, who was waiting in the parking lot. She was in the car, distraught, when an anti-abortion “sidewalk counselor” approached.
“‘You’re not alone. If you’re pregnant and need help, we can help you,'” the curbside attendant told her, T. recalls.
“I just started crying,” T. said, “in a sense of relief.”
The next day, the woman T. had met in the parking lot led her to Birth Choice, an anti-abortion maternity center in the same office complex as the abortion provider.
Some abortion crisis pregnancy centers have come under scrutiny for misleading or misinforming women seeking abortion care. But at the time, “They were asking me the perfect questions,” T. said of the Birth Choice consultant. “Am I okay? Are my children okay? What did I need?
“Mind you, I left everything behind,” she said. “They gave me everything there: baby bag, diapers, formula, clothes for me. They even gave me some clothes for my daughter and a toy,” said T.
“Then my counselor comes back and says, ‘I found a place for you.'”
The place was Blue Haven Ranch, located in Argyle, about 45 minutes from Dallas.
Blue Haven offers housing, help with household bills, work training and (financial) guidance for pregnant women with existing children up to a year or longer after childbirth. Of Americans seeking abortion care, 60 percent are already mothers and half have two or more children. Most are in their late twenties and poor.
Ms. Schlackman, 34, a former dental hygienist, evangelical Christian and mother of two, founded Blue Haven in 2020.
She grew up believing that women seek abortion care for convenience. “Now I understand why they would choose it,” she said.
Ms. Schlackman requires women to attend group information sessions with a strong religious component at a community church on Monday evenings. Blue Haven does not ask for money from the government or anyone else who could question its religious approach. It includes donations from abortion rights advocates and opponents alike, Ms. Schlackman said, reading a note from someone who sent $50: “‘I don’t share your beliefs about abortion and Christianity, but I hope your strength to take similar initiatives elsewhere. to encourage.’”
Blue Haven supports five families, 12 of which are on the waiting list. The cost is about $2,500 per family per month for housing and utilities, plus gas and unexpected household expenses. A Boston financier who read about Blue Haven and offered to help recently struck a deal on a used car for a mom with a bad credit score.
Currently there is no ranch; the families live in rented apartments. Ms. Schlackman and her husband Bryan have plans to purchase a plot of undulating land outside Denton, Texas and build a lot with small houses, a meeting house and a group kitchen, plus open spaces and livestock for “farm therapy.”
Standing in the wheat field where she envisions the homes, Ms. Schlackman estimated that she would need to raise $13 million for the land, construction and three years of company funds. After Roe was destroyed, Blue Haven received $25,000 in donations in two days.
The focus on the Bible and the emphasis on Christian family ideals make some Blue Haven moms uncomfortable. But for T., the group provided a lifeline in a time of dwindling opportunity. On a recent Monday evening, she attended a group session while her children played on the church’s pristine playground, supervised by grandparents. Other volunteers provided a communal supper.
Blue Haven hosted a baby shower for T., and the supporters bought everything on a register Mrs. Schlackman had made. (T. chose a zoo animal theme for her son’s layette, in shades of blue and green.) When Cason was born, Mrs. Schlackman was there to nurse T. at the spa-like birthing center where she had given birth to her own sons.
Blue Haven’s help ends about a year after Cason’s first birthday.
“The pressure is really there,” T. said Thursday, four days after she gave birth to Cason. “I have a year to rebuild my life as my body heals, and four children to care for at the same time. It is scary. I try not to think about what will happen if I leave the program. I know I can be a great mom, it’s just, can I take care of my kids, keep the kids healthy and safe and have a roof over our heads and eat?”
She hopes, she said, to get another job as a bookkeeper and eventually live in her own house.
She said she has a message for the Texas legislature.
“You don’t know what’s best for a family, you haven’t protected me and my children. I protect my children. Only a mother can know what is best for herself and her family. And if you’re going to force women to have all these babies that they’re not equipped for, then you have to support women and their children after the babies are born.”
Earlier in the week, a day and a half after giving birth, T. had something to say.
“Women, we only have our dignity and our voices,” she said. “And you take them.”
Erin Schaff contributed from Argyle and Margot Sanger-Katz of Washington.