Anti-abortion crusade misses target, hurts vulnerable women

>>> okay. let's say you're a doctor, a private physician in any small to mid-sized city in the country. if any of your patients comes to you with an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy , you as her doctor can provide her with a low-risk, outpatient procedure to terminate the pregnancy. you can file a claim with her insurance company . you can both go home to your families. let's say you're a doctor who has chosen to provide abortions to the most vulnerable women , to women without insurance, teens or domestic violence victims. if you're a doctor trying to serve that population in say jackson, mississippi , or sioux falls , south dakota , or little rock , arkansas, or fargo , north dakota , you have a completely different experience. if you live in the community, you'll have protesters at your home and office. your friends and neighbors will get flyers calling you a murderer. you might employee an armed security guard. you take a different route to work every day. you might not even feel comfortable living in the community where you you might fly in from out of state and then fly back home when you're done each week. you might have to use an assumed name while you're in town. and if you don't, you can expect to be followed to your hotel by people who want to stop you from doing your work. openly providing abortion where every one has access to it is bordering on impossible in the united states . the one remaining clinic in the entire state of mississippi , which is served by doctors who fly in each week to serve the patients there, is poised to be shut down by anti-abortion politicians who control state government. they have been very straightforward that their goal is to close this clinic by apapass bypassing legislation and of requirement that is they knew they could not meet.

>> what we campaigned on, ending abortion in mississippi .

>> we're going to try to end abortion in mississippi . this is an historic day of beginning that process.

>> shutting down this one clinic started last spring. the same process is starting right now in fargo , north dakota . another state with only one remaining abortion clinic being targeted by the state legislature in exactly the same way. the north dakota senate this week passed a bill with new regulations targeting just that one remaining clinic . among all health care providers in the state with the exact same new regulations enacted in mississippi , rules that are not necessary for safety or health. just as this method of shusting down access to abortion seems to be working in mississippi , the folks in north dakota are picking it up and running with it. and if it works in north dakota , if this new bill becomes law and does shut down that one remaining clinic , it cuts off access for women in a huge swath of the country. this is fargo . this is where the only abortion clinic in north dakota is. the next closest clinic is to the east. it's almost four hours away in minneapolis, minnesota. the next closest clinic to the south, about four hours away in sioux falls , south dakota . to the west, you're probably looking at billings, montana, more than eight hours away. as you can see, there's already a very serious access problem in this part of the country. so if you take away the one clinic in this region that is served by so few clinics, you're cutting off access for women in a four- state region. and that is the goal. with both of these laws, to harness the power of state government to eliminate access to abortion, to eliminate the one little building in the entire state where a woman with a few means and tough choices to make knows she can go. but let's be clear. even if the state succeeds in shutting down this clinic , they will not eliminate abortion in the state . those with regular, private, ob/gyns will still be able to terminate pregnancies. these rules will eliminate safe and legal abortion for the most vulnerable women . there's a very easy way to describe this world being created by anti-abortion forces whittling down the options for women . this is the pre- roe v. wade reality. it's now affordable and accessible in some states and not in others this fundamental, cops contusionally protected right, in practical terms, depends on where you live. women shouldn't have to live with that. [ mom ] 3 days