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To Recognize The Tyranny Of Distance: A Spatial Reading Of Whole Women's Health V. Hellerstedt, Lisa R. Pruitt , Michele Statz
To Recognize The Tyranny Of Distance: A Spatial Reading Of Whole Women's Health V. Hellerstedt, Lisa R. Pruitt , Michele Statz
Lisa R Pruitt
Distance—physical, material distance—is an obviously spatial concept, but one rarely engaged by legal or feminist geographers. We take up this oversight in relation to the 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, which adjudicated the constitutionality of a Texas law that imposed new regulations on abortion providers. Because half of the state’s abortion providers were unable to meet these regulations and thus closed, the distance that many Texas women had to travel for abortion services increased dramatically. In part because of these increases, the Supreme Court ultimately determined that the Texas laws imposed an …