8 OctOber 3 - 9, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents as Texas women have come forward about the negative impact state laws have had on their pregnancies. When Amanda Zurawski talked about her experience before the Sen- ate Judiciary Committee, a committee on which both Cruz and Texas Sen. John Cornyn sit, neither was present. “I was pro-choice before becoming a fa- ther, but I think when you go through the process of a pregnancy, and you go to the ul- trasound appointments and the genetic test- ing appointments, you see just how many times, at so many different points, some- thing can go wrong,” Allred told the Ob- server. “I think it just drives home for you that this is a fundamental decision that has to be between a woman, her family, her faith and her doctor.” Pro-life proponents have often touted their religion as the basis for their belief, but Allred, who is a Christian, says his faith has informed his personal values, including his belief in personal freedom. On the podcast episode, he and Hamilton agreed that ap- pealing to that sense of individual freedom could be a key strategy in reaching Texas men who are not involved in the reproduc- tive rights conversation. In addition to being vocal about his belief in reinstating federal abortion access pro- tection, Allred has used his platform while campaigning to bring attention to the im- pacts of Texas’ abortion ban. At a Dallas rally last month, Allred was joined on stage by plaintiffs from the Zurawski v. Texas case, Kate Cox and white-coated OB-GYN doc- tors who testified to their experiences under the statewide abortion ban. Allred, alongside other high-profile men joining the reproductive rights conversa- tion, could help turn the tide in the upcom- ing election, said Samuel Dickman, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of Montana. Whether it will create a large enough wave, though, is the major question yet to be answered. “I think what Doug Elmhoff and other high-profile, celebrity men have done to talk about and help destigmatize abortion care is actually really helpful,” Dickman told the Observer. “There have been men talking about abortion for a long time, but it seems like it’s really picked up in salience over the last year or two just since Dobbs.” Dickman is an abortion care provider who practiced in San Antonio and Fort Worth early in his career. Then, in 2021, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 8 — also known as the Texas Heartbeat Act — which banned abortions after six weeks across the state. Dickman was on edge, and by the time oral arguments in the Dobbs decision were completed in December 2021, it became “very clear” that the near-total abortion ban in Texas would go into effect. The summer of 2022, while the Supreme Court was issuing a 6–3 decision to repeal federal abortion protections outlined in Roe v. Wade, Dickman was moving to Montana, where the state Supreme Court has ruled that the right to an abortion is technically protected in the state constitution. In moving, Dickman was likely trying to avoid being put into a position like the one Hamilton’s wife’s doctors were in. At the time, Hamilton believed the doctors were “scared and unsure” when presented with his wife’s miscarriage. Later, “it felt like they were trying to navigate something that they weren’t sure how to navigate.” “They told my wife that it was not enough of an emergency to perform a D&C [dilation and curettage], and that’s an impor- tant statement because what they’re saying is she’s not close enough to death,” Hamil- ton said. “A D&C — the procedure my wife desperately needed — whether it’s for an elective abortion or for an incomplete mis- carriage, is still medically coded as abortion care. I’ve learned that’s why it gets so com- plicated for doctors in Texas, because even in my wife’s case, an incomplete miscarriage is still technically [abortion care].” In November, Montana voters will have the chance to emphatically enshrine abor- tion protections in their state constitution. Nine other states — Arizona, Colorado, Flor- ida, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and South Dakota — are giving voters the chance to do the same. As states scramble to codify abortion ac- cess in their constitutions or ban it com- pletely, Allred has remained consistent: the answer is federal protection. He believes that the standard outlined in Roe v. Wade should be what lawmakers vow to return to, and that “fundamental rights” should not change from state to state. “We’ve been through this before in this country not that long ago when we had Jim Crow laws restricting the rights of African Americans in the South,” Allred said. “What we arrived at was a consensus that funda- mentally, there are certain rights that should be better protected by the Constitution that have to be national in nature.” But Alex Clark, a lawyer and board mem- ber of the Dallas County Young Democrats, believes that, contrary to recent events, even Texas could be ready to enshrine abortion access on a state level down the road. Clark grew up in Sherman, Texas, and, like many small-towners, defaulted to the “pro-life” side. Then in college he experi- enced a classic widening of his worldview. He was drawn into reproductive rights ad- vocacy after Wendy Davis’ landmark filibus- ter in 2013 and has now been politically active for over a decade. Clad in pink sneakers, Davis stood on the Texas House floor for 11 hours to block Re- publicans from passing legislation that would outlaw abortions after 20 weeks and close the majority of abortion centers across the state. To this day, she stands as an exam- ple of the Lone Star State’s strong Demo- cratic presence that Clark believes could win a victory on abortion access, if it gets onto a ballot anytime soon. “We’re not the reddest state in the coun- try. Not even close,” Clark told the Observer. “If places much more conservative than Texas can win [abortion access] referen- dums, it’s really a failure of imagination to think that it could never happen here. It’s a failure of imagination to say that we cannot bring back basic abortion rights and free- doms and protections to Texans.” Unlike Clark and Allred, Dickman is more skeptical of the political future for abortion access rights. While in medical school, he never believed Roe v. Wade would be overturned. He never thought a ban like S.B. 8 would be possible. Witnessing both has “tempered” the life- long optimism he’s had for America. Although reproductive rights advocacy has peaked in enthusiasm, he doesn’t believe that the anti-abortion side has disappeared. They just might be working behind the scenes. “We saw Donald Trump on TV during the debate [last week] saying that he was un- willing to commit to vetoing a national abor- tion ban. There’s a reason he said that and that’s because of the, I think, persistent pressure from this very extreme anti-abor- tion wing of politics,” Dickman said. “I think that’s still a very powerful force, and I don’t think they represent anywhere close to the majority of Americans, but they still have a hold on politicians like Donald Trump.” Hamilton, Josh Zurawski and many of the husbands who have been negatively im- pacted by Texas’ abortion ban share a simi- lar heartbreaking line: We wanted this baby. Names had been chosen, nurseries had been painted and strollers had been pur- chased when something, on an intangible, biological level, went wrong. The pain of that loss was then compounded by the trauma of not receiving medical care, they say. But Hamilton has been able to use that hurt as fuel for his advocacy. “I think the thing is, I need this terrible thing that happened to us to mean some- thing. It can’t just be this terrible thing that happened and we’re going to carry it with us for the rest of our lives,” Hamilton said. “If I can take the terrible thing and make it mean something, it’ll make it a little more bear- able.” When it comes to getting more men in- volved in talking about abortion access, ad- vocacy should not be automatically delegated or expected of those who have ex- perienced a familial tragedy, Clark said. He also warns that if men who have not been subject to an abortion-access tragedy be- lieve they are exempt from the movement, it won’t reach its full potential. He is a father whose family has been “ex- traordinarily blessed” with healthy preg- nancies, but he believes his contribution to advocating for abortion-rights is pivotal. “It seems like a cliche that in the past, [men] only started to speak up once they have a daughter or once it started to directly affect their personal situation,” Clark said. “It shouldn’t matter that I’m the father of a daughter. It shouldn’t matter that I have sis- ters.” But Hamilton believes that being a father of a daughter is exactly what has made his dedication to advocating for change so unre- lenting. On his podcast, on social media, to the nationwide crowd he now has standing before him, his message is this: Men must start speaking up. “There’s this switch that got flipped in- side of me that I didn’t know that I had. What happened to my wife cannot only never happen to her again, I will make sure it never happens to my daughter,” Hamilton said. “There is no chance, as this little girl’s protector, that I can be quiet or comfortable knowing that it’s possible for something to happen to her like what happened to her mom.” ▼ LGBTQ+ SAFE SPACE TRANSGENDER ACTIVIST URGES DALLAS TO BECOME SANCTUARY CITY FOR GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE. BY EMMA RUBY T he Dallas County Commissioners Court passed a resolution affirming the rights of transgender people liv- ing in the county earlier this month, mark- ing the first step in a regional transgender rights and bodily autonomy campaign led by the Democratic Socialists of America’s North Texas chapter. Spearheaded by DSA organizer and transgender rights activist Saya Clarke, the resolution is a product of the group’s desire to enshrine protections for transgender in- dividuals in Dallas’ code while “rebuking” state legislation that bars youth from receiv- ing gender-affirming healthcare. “Regressive laws are being passed and written every day in all these different states,” Clarke told the Observer. Maria Crane At a Collin Allred campaign rally, Kate Cox of Dallas was backed by other Texas women who have suffered from the uncertainty surrounding Texas abortion laws. Unfair Park from p6 >> p10
