A Texas doctor has claimed to have performed 67 abortions the day before the new law took effect in the southern state.
Earlier this month, Texas passed a new law - known as Senate Bill 8 (TX SB8) - that bans abortion providers from carrying out terminations after the fetus' heartbeat had been detected. This is usually around the six-week mark, when many women are unaware that they're even pregnant.
As reported by CNN, the law cites no exception for pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest. The only exception to the law is if a "physician believes that a medical emergency exists".
Now, in an interview with Vice, a 83-year-old OB-GYN and termination provider at the Whole Woman’s Health abortion clinics in north Texas has revealed that he worked up until midnight before the law took effect on September 1.
Describing the day as "unheard-of", Dr. Jasbir Ahluwalia reveals he performed 67 abortions that day, explaining: "We knew we had to take care of each one of them."
"Nobody cared for their own welfare," he says of his fellow staff at the clinic. "The workers—they want to take care of the patients. That was an amazing, amazing attitude I saw for the first time in all these 50 years of practice of medicine."
And despite describing the patients that evening as "calm", he says: "They knew that after midnight, we’ll not be able to take care of them. Those who were there at 11 o'clock, we told them that’s time running out."
Dr. Ahluwalia confirmed that no shortcuts were taking and "everything was done properly" and on the books.
The doctor says that the next day, the clinic was nearly "empty", and says that it is a "sad, hollow feeling" being unable to take care of patients.
"It’s a law, it's in effect, we have to observe it," he ultimately says.
When challenged by a reporter on the new law, Texas Governor Greg Abbott reiterated earlier this month that "it provides at least six weeks for a person to be able to get an abortion".
He then went on to say that "goal number one in the state of Texas is to eliminate rape so that no woman, no person, will be a victim of rape."
In response to his comments, representative for New York's 14th congressional district Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stressed: "I’m sorry we have to break down biology 101 on national television, but in case no one has informed him before in his life, six weeks pregnant means two weeks late for your period.
"And two weeks late on your period for any person, any person with a menstrual cycle, can happen if you’re stressed, if your diet changes, or for really no reason at all. So, you don’t have six weeks."
You can watch AOC's damning response in the video below:The 31-year-old also lambasted Abbott's comments regarding rape and said that the Governor "speaks from such a place of deep ignorance."