Residents in southwestern Virginia have battled for months over whether abortion clinics limited by strict laws in other states should be allowed to hop over the border and operate there.
Similar scenarios are beginning to play out in communities along state lines around the country since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. – The pastors smiled as they held the doors open, grabbing the hands of those who walked by and urging many to keep praying and to keep showing up. Some responded with a hug. A few grimaced as they squeezed past.
“We’re trying to figure out what we do at this point,” said Koch, who supports abortion rights. “We’re just on our heels all the time.” Anti-abortion activists have tapped into that sentiment — in Virginia and elsewhere — and are proposing changes to zoning and other local ordinance laws to stop the clinics from moving in. Since Roe was overturned, such local ordinances have been identified as a tool for officials to control where patients can get an abortion, advocates and legal experts say.
While such local ordinance changes are no longer necessary in Texas, which now has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, Dickson says he and others will continue to pursue them in other states with liberal abortion statutes.In New Mexico, which has one of the country's most liberal abortion access laws, activists in two counties and three cities in the eastern part of the state have successfully sought ordinance changes restricting the procedure.
“Nobody wants their town to be known as the place where people come to take human life. That’s just not a reputation that the people in Bristol want for their area,” said foundation President Victoria Cobb. The Bristol Women’s Health clinic is battling multiple lawsuits but would not be affected by the proposed ordinance unless it tried to expand or make other changes. While some residents oppose the facility, “they’re more afraid that this industry is going to expand and that Bristol is going to just become a multistate hub of the abortion industry,” said the Rev. Chris Hess, who as pastor of St. Anne Catholic Church has advocated for the zoning change.
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