Thread by @TexasObserver

1/ Ozona is in the middle of a devastating health care crisis.

The town is at the center of a swath of West Texas where people can’t obtain birth control, can’t deliver a baby, and can’t get an abortion.
texasobserver.org/labor-away-wom…

2/ Ozona lost its hospital in 1996.

Today, people seeking basic reproductive health services face a 170-mile round trip drive to San Angelo.

The closest abortion clinic is in San Antonio—400 miles round trip.
texasobserver.org/labor-away-wom…

3/ The reproductive health care void in Ozona is especially bad, but millions of rural Texans lack access to these services.
texasobserver.org/labor-away-wom…

4/ More than half of Texas counties have no OB-GYN.

Of the state’s 158 remaining rural hospitals, just 66 still deliver babies, according to @torchnet.
texasobserver.org/labor-away-wom…

@torchnet 5/ In 2011, budget cuts shuttered more than 80 publicly funded family planning clinics across the state.

And more than half the abortion clinics closed following sweeping anti-abortion legislation passed in 2013.
texasobserver.org/labor-away-wom…

@torchnet 6/ The trend is a national one too. States are passing increasingly restrictive anti-abortion laws. Rural hospitals across the U.S. are shuttering their maternity wards. And, mirroring Texas, half of U.S. counties have no OB-GYN.
texasobserver.org/labor-away-wom…

7/ Texas lawmakers could make it easier for women to access care.

According to the state’s own researchers, extending Medicaid eligibility for new moms to a year postpartum would help address high rates of maternal mortality.
texasobserver.org/labor-away-wom… #txlege

8/ But bills introduced last Legislative session to do just that failed, as did another measure to grant minors who are already mothers access to contraception without Texas’ mandated parental consent.
texasobserver.org/labor-away-wom…

9/ Reproductive rights advocates are trying to find ways to step in and expand access where possible.

@WHFPTX is looking into supporting providers in West Texas. And @PPFA reopened a facility in El Paso in 2018.
texasobserver.org/labor-away-wom…

@WHFPTX @PPFA 10/ But with fewer and fewer hospitals delivering babies in rural Texas, it’s becoming more dangerous to be pregnant in those parts of the state.
texasobserver.org/labor-away-wom…

11/ Read the final installment of “Critical Condition,” our investigation into Texas’ rural health care crisis:
texasobserver.org/labor-away-wom…