This abortion clinic is the last one standing on the Texas-Mexico border ... and it is just across the street from an anti-abortion center.
@maya.cueva.5 @OnTheDivideMovie #OnTheDivide
@maya.cueva.5 @OnTheDivideMovie #OnTheDivide
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00:00We'll shut this place down.
00:11I'll get every Christian in the valley to come over here, stand in front and block these
00:15doors."
00:16I'm a clinic escort at the Women's Health and we have some protesters.
00:31Leave her alone.
00:32Back away.
00:33Get away.
00:34Go away.
00:36Out of the way.
00:37McGowan Pregnancy Center is still open.
00:48Their target is women who are of the reproductive age who they think might be seeking abortions.
00:57Although they are able to provide services such as giving diapers and free ultrasounds,
01:04ultimately their goal is to stop a person from having an abortion.
01:08I think that often the way that mainstream media can portray it, the way that religion
01:16can portray this decision is just as this idea of killing a baby.
01:23No one can take life but him.
01:25Don't do this.
01:26For many people there might be health-related reasons, there might be reasons based, economic-based
01:33reasons.
01:35There might just be the reason of someone not being ready to have a child, or ready
01:40to have a baby.
01:43People seek abortions for multitude of reasons.
01:45The doctor says that you can't lose the baby, you can die.
01:59Thirteen clinics were forced to close, leaving just eight in all of Texas.
02:03The eyes of the world are on the border town.
02:05This is serving primarily Latinx people, Latinx population.
02:10And there's also patients that are coming in from Mexico and crossing the border because
02:16abortion is not accessible in Mexico.
02:19There's another facet to this issue within the Rio Grande Valley is that there's a number
02:24of undocumented people who, if this clinic were to shut down, the Holman's Health Clinic
02:30in McAllen, they would have to travel over 250 miles to get to the nearest clinic, and
02:36they would have to cross border checkpoints along the way, which means they risk deportation
02:42just to try to see a medical professional.
02:45What keeps us going is that, well, this is what the patients have to face, and they should
02:49not face this alone.
02:51This also has to do with what's happening around immigration and immigration rights,
02:58and just access to reproductive health care.
03:08I think what often happens within the abortion debate is that white women and white cis women
03:13are often put at the forefront, or their voices are often the ones that are getting the most
03:22light, and we're not thinking about this through a perspective of, say, a black or
03:28brown person.
03:29I would always make a point to ask them, what stories do you feel like aren't being shared,
03:33or what has been misrepresented about your community in the mainstream news media?
03:38And many of them would say, no one's ever asked me that before.
03:43Journalists come in here, they want a specific story, they want a story that will make the
03:47headlines, but no one asks us, what is important for us to share?
03:53So we do try to spread the word that we're here, and we're here to stay, and we're not
03:57going anywhere.
03:58This isn't just about abortion rights being stripped away, it is about reproductive rights
04:03in general, because we know what happens when one facet of reproductive rights is stripped
04:08away, others also get stripped.