In opposition to HB2

The following is the testimony I intended to give on my opposition to HB2 in the Texas House on July 2, 2013. I was never called, because at midnight over 1,014 people remained to testify-- despite some of us traveling far distances-- in my case, 9hrs. I can only request that the Senate version of the bill be heard around the state so that people in far-reaching communities have the ability to speak. I know now that I will never have the opportunity, because I must travel back home. 

Thank you for hearing me today. My name is Andra Litton and I drove 9hrs from El Paso, TX to testify today. I guess I am willing to wait another 24hrs if you feel it necessary. Many of you may or may not know that El Paso’s Planned Parenthood was closed in 2008. The nearest Planned Parenthood is in Albuquerque, NM – a 4hr drive from El Paso. When I became pregnant, I was uninsured and scared. I went to the place I thought could help me—a “crisis pregnancy center.” I suppose I was naive—and didn’t understand what they did there, but after they confirmed my pregnancy via a store bought pregnancy test (which I had already done) they did an abdominal ultrasound and told me my baby was dead. They told me I had a blighted ovum and my baby would son pass. No other options—they sent me on my way. I went home and cried. Because this baby that God had given me—was dead. Turns out, you can’t tell if a baby is alive or dead based on an abdominal ultrasound at a young gestational age. That dead blighted ovum—is now a happy, healthy 4yr old child. A child I CHOOSE to keep. I bring this up, because I feel like there are many women out there who are scared and would like to keep their babies but are given such awful “healthcare” information from these crisis clinics that it causes even more trauma. The trauma from bad medical advice and information is real too. Its very real. And it happens a lot, especially with uninsured, low-income and uneducated women.

El Paso is two lungs, one body. Mexico and the US. According to El Paso’s ABC affiliate, KVIA, El Paso’s Reproductive Services clinic’s clientele are actually 30% from Juarez Mexico, where abortion is illegal except in the case of rape or in the Capitol of Mexico City. If this bill passes, women who live in Mexico who are seeking legal, SAFE abortions will have to travel through border patrol in either direction. Now, I know many of our legislators don’t care about these women, because they are either Mexican citizens or undocumented immigrants. But the financial strain on El Paso’s economy, healthcare and education system should be apparent. Those precious babies’ lives are important to each one of you unless those children are Hispanic or born to Mexican mothers. Then you will shame them and call them illegal immigrants and deport them while their American born children are forced to live in limbo. In Albuquerque, they have extremely few limitations on abortion- you can legally have an abortion until birth in New Mexico. With this piece of legislation you are not only endangering women’s lives, but you are encouraging the incredibly dangerous practices that you claim you are trying to prevent.

Much like the advocates for this legislation, I would like excellent women’s healthcare too. I would have liked to have mental health after I was kicked off of our states’ Medicaid program during my extended, debilitating bought with post partum depression that left me disconnected and resenting my young son for the first year and a half of his life. I would have liked birth control access, and cancer screenings in my own community. When I had a terrible complication from the copper Paraguard IUD inserted 8w post-partum where I literally bled for 4 months straight I would have liked to have access to someone in El Paso that could have removed that safely and at a low cost instead of me driving all the way to my old trusted OB/GYN in Austin to have it removed. That’s what I would like. Please end the war on women. Please end the war on HISPANIC women – I ask you for every single one of them who could not travel here today and who will never even know what you are doing here today because they are too busy working three jobs to support their families. I ask you for the women of Southern New Mexico. Les pido a las mujeres de Juárez, México. Keep abortion safe, legal and accessible for all of us.

Thank You.