As abortion entry divides US, one small city is caught within the center
BRISTOL, Tenn.-Va. – An indication overlooking the downtown site visitors on State Road marks the place Virginia meets Tennessee.
Lauded because the birthplace of nation music and residential to NASCAR’s Bristol Motor Speedway, the 2 states on this Appalachian neighborhood share a library, chamber of commerce and publish workplace.
However the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 tore Bristol in two.
Virginia permits the process. Tennessee prohibits it.
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Within the almost two years since, this border city has discovered itself on the entrance line of the nation’s extremely charged abortion debate as highly effective influencers from either side moved in, fueling fierce zoning fights, authorized battles and fiery protests.
“We’re in a novel state of affairs the place we’re proper up in opposition to two very totally different units of insurance policies,” mentioned Jon Luttrell, an official for Bristol, Tennessee’s Metropolis Council.
On the crux of the divide is Bristol Girls’s Well being, a clinic that opened on the Virginia aspect weeks earlier than the Tennessee ban prompted a supplier there to cease providing abortions.
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Its opening means individuals in search of an abortion don’t should drive 150 miles to Roanoke, Virginia.
Bristol Girls’s Well being sees as much as 150 sufferers a month, 90% of whom journey from states the place abortion is severely restricted or banned, together with Tennessee, West Virginia, North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi.
“It actually put this clinic on the forefront,” mentioned Neal Osborne, a Bristol native and councilman who watched the occasions unfold from the Virginia aspect.
Politicians and advocates have polarized takes on abortion. However whereas Bristol’s abortion legal guidelines are cleanly divided by State Road, its residents inform a extra nuanced story.
Terrie Driver, who works the entrance desk at Bristol Girls’s Well being, mentioned abortion is a “private selection, not a political one.”
“No one needs to come back and have an abortion. It’s a need-based state of affairs,” she mentioned. “This isn’t one thing individuals do for enjoyable.”
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A judicial resolution made tons of of miles away in Washington, D.C., has created stress and is drawing a nationwide highlight on this small neighborhood straddling two states.
“Tennessee’s over there going: ‘We received. We received. We received our method.’ And Virginia’s like, ‘No, you did not,'” Driver mentioned. “So there’s a number of upheaval now.”
‘Finest-kept secret’ now not
On Oct. 25, 2022, a crowd of greater than 200 gathered within the parking zone outdoors the Bristol, Virginia Metropolis Council constructing. It was the primary of a number of makes an attempt to close down the clinic, then nearly 4 months previous.
Protesters sang, chanted and bowed their heads in prayer, clutching yellow and white indicators that learn “Secure Zone for Life.” They had been awaiting a vote on a hotly contested zoning ordinance that sought to limit abortion on the aspect of city the place it was authorized, stopping the brand new Virginia clinic from increasing and prohibiting different clinics from coming to city.
Among the two dozen audio system on the usually sleepy council assembly mentioned they opposed the restrictions. However the majority on this largely Southern Baptist neighborhood backed the measure.
A soft-spoken Bristol resident named Terri Brewer mentioned she supported the anti-abortion zoning restriction. She advised the council members she didn’t need others to expertise heartache like she endured as a pregnant teen.
On reflection, she felt her little one was killed and will have had an opportunity to stay, Brewer later advised USA TODAY. Abortion is usually pushed as the one different for pregnant individuals who don’t wish to increase a toddler, she mentioned in an interview in January, and different choices like adoption aren’t mentioned sufficient.
“I’ve been via the abortion course of and I’ve been modified perpetually,” she mentioned. “If you stroll out the door and that little one’s life has ended, you’ll be able to’t simply go on along with your life like regular. … You’ll at all times carry one thing of that occasion in your coronary heart for the remainder of your life.”
On the 2022 council assembly, the Rev. Chris Hess, a Catholic pastor, advised members the clinic was already attracting nationwide media and extremists from either side.
“Our metropolis is turning into well-known for all of the incorrect causes,” he mentioned. “We’ve gone from being the best-kept secret in Virginia to being talked about in over half a dozen states.”
The Metropolis Council handed the zoning measure, however it has been caught in authorized and procedural limbo ever since.
Because the 2022 assembly, cities across the U.S. have tackled related native ordinances in search of to tighten the foundations in states the place abortion is authorized.
Anti-abortion activists gave it one other shot in August 2023, when Councilman Michael Pollard proposed one other zoning ordinance be added to the council agenda.
The brand new measure would have allowed abortion amenities to function in Bristol however solely in sure components of the city. However on this occasion, council members declined to listen to the proposal, which annoyed supporters.
“By being silent you might have spoken,” resident Angie Bush advised the council. “I simply wish to name you out at this second. … We would like you to take this difficulty on.”
Advocates tried different means to power the clinic out.
About six months into the clinic’s lease in December 2022, Bristol Girls’s Well being was sued by its landlord, who mentioned the clinic homeowners by no means advised him they’d be offering abortions, in accordance with court docket paperwork.
Bristol Girls’s Well being mentioned the lease was legitimate and requested for a dismissal. The lawsuit is pending.
Within the meantime, the clinic sees a gentle beat of sufferers at an unmarked single-story constructing, which shares an intersection with the only real marijuana dispensary and the forthcoming Laborious Rock Resort & On line casino.
Since 2020, Virginia has seen a 76% enhance in abortions, in accordance with the Guttmacher Institute, a analysis and coverage group that helps abortion rights.
The clinic administrator, Karolina Ogorek, mentioned the clinic’s affected person quantity rivals that of 1 she used to run in Knoxville, Tennessee, which supplied abortions for about 35 years.
Years of expertise in abortion care have taught her to count on pushback.
“Folks that had been opposing reproductive rights and freedom to decide on weren’t completely satisfied about us coming right here,” she mentioned. “However, it’s a authorized service … and a needed one.”
Neighbors take sides, battles ‘amp up’
In January 2023, Barbara Schwartz stood frozen within the clinic parking zone as a gray pickup gained velocity, heading towards her. He’s bluffing, she thought.
She and a fellow escort had arrived on the clinic earlier than the primary sufferers, at about 8 a.m., when the person began yelling at them from his idling pickup.
Because the truck neared the volunteers, her pal jumped out of the best way, however Schwartz couldn’t transfer. On the final second, the person screeched to a halt, peeled out of the parking zone and drove away.
Schwartz grabbed her cellphone, took a photograph of his license plate and referred to as Bristol police. It’s one of many 58 instances officers acquired a name from that location since July 2022, in accordance with information. Most of these calls got here from clinic supporters or opponents citing a battle, police mentioned.
Authorities arrested the pickup driver, and he was finally sentenced to a yr’s probation for assault and battery.
The person within the truck wasn’t one of many protesters who routinely stand outdoors the clinic, Schwartz mentioned. She has been on this discipline for years, however she believes what occurred displays this period of historical past. There’s extra hostility for the reason that Dobbs resolution, in her view.
“I really feel the diminishing of any civility in any way,” she mentioned. “I see a complete amp-up within the rhetoric and the threats.”
Schwartz and different volunteer escorts banded collectively a few yr in the past to create the nonprofit State Line Abortion Entry Companions, or SLAAP.
Volunteers take turns working shifts on the clinic. Schwartz approaches sufferers on foot as they flip into the parking zone.
She typically carries a black and yellow striped umbrella to create a visible barrier between protesters and sufferers as she walks them to the clinic doorways.
Throughout a affected person go to in January, Schwartz handed family of a younger lady a SLAAP aftercare bag full of gadgets she may want after the process – menstrual pads, ibuprofen, disposable heating pads, natural tea, fuzzy socks and a handwritten notice from a SLAAP member.
Donations to the group’s “Final Mile Fund” have helped cowl sufferers’ transportation to and from the Tri-Cities Airport simply over the Tennessee border, and their gasoline, meals and lodging. The SLAAP members additionally fill the seats at council conferences the place they counter the voices of their conservative neighbors.
Erika Schanzenbach, who has lived in Bristol for about 20 years, is among the many rotating contingent of clinic protesters who plead with drivers and typically chant via a bullhorn, encouraging sufferers to rethink their plans.
She extends this steering to guests on her web site, LifeBristol, the place pregnant individuals can contact her or find out about options to abortion. She has helped join some individuals to native charities and church buildings.
Schanzenbach acknowledges that almost all of ladies who go to the Virginia clinic do not cease to speak to her.
“However we consider that it is necessary to talk, to be a voice for these youngsters, no matter their mothers determine,” she mentioned.
Large hearts in a small city
Terrie Driver, who lives on the middle of Bristol’s new controversy, says elevating 13 youngsters had been her life’s work.
She toiled within the meals service trade for 43 years to feed and dress her youngsters, however the job gave her no pleasure.
It wasn’t till she accepted a place as a receptionist for Bristol Girls’s Well being that she discovered renewed function. The job requires greater than answering telephones, filling out paperwork and scheduling appointments.
Driver spends her days listening to sufferers’ tales, patting them on the again, holding their arms and hugging them once they want a shoulder to cry on.
“I don’t know anything however taking care and tending to and that’s mainly my job in that clinic is to be a mother,” she mentioned. “They want anyone to be light to them in a troublesome time, and that’s what I do.”
She feels fulfilled on the clinic, however it has come at a steep value.
Former purchasers from her job as a house aide will not discuss to her. She has misplaced associates and fallen out with siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews and a son.
Regardless of a fractured relationship together with her son, Driver mentioned her 17 granddaughters inspire her to proceed working at Bristol Girls’s Well being.
“I’m capable of be variety and giving and compassionate to individuals at one of many worst instances of their life, and that’s ok for me,” she mentioned. “My coronary heart lastly has a spot to be massive. … (It) tells me that that is the place I must be.”
The friction over the clinic will proceed to rattle residents – fracturing relationships, interrupting native authorities and inflicting battle amongst neighbors.
“Bristol by no means anticipated it, however to be trustworthy, many people by no means anticipated having this debate,” mentioned Ogorek, the clinic administrator. “We’ve all been thrown into uncharted territory and we’re simply making an attempt to navigate it.”
Adrianna Rodriguez is a well being reporter for the USA TODAY nation group. Contact Adrianna at adrodriguez@usatoday.com or @AdriannaUSAT on X.
