Whole Woman's Health et al v. Jackson et al

Filing 19

MOTION for Summary Judgment and Memorandum of Law in Support by Alamo Women's Reproductive Services, Alamo City Surgery Center PLLC, Brookside Women's Medical Center PA, Erika Forbes, Frontera Fund, Fund Texas Choice, Allison Gilbert, Houston Women's Clinic, Houston Women's Reproductive Services, Jane's Due Process, Daniel Kanter, Bhavik Kumar, Lilith Fund, Inc., North Texas Equal Access Fund, Planned Parenthood Center for Choice, Planned Parenthood South Texas Surgical Center, Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas Surgical Health Services, Marva Sadler, Southwestern Women's Surgery Center, The Afiya Center, Whole Woman's Health, Whole Women's Health Alliance. (Attachments: #1 Exhibit A. Gilbert Declaration, #2 Exhibit B. Kumar Declaration, #3 Exhibit C. Ferrigno Declaration, #4 Exhibit D. Klier Declaration, #5 Exhibit E. Lambrecht Declaration, #6 Exhibit F. Linton Declaration, #7 Exhibit G. Hagstrom Miller Declaration, #8 Exhibit H. Braid Declaration, #9 Exhibit I. Rosenfeld Declaration, #10 Exhibit J. Barraza Declaration, #11 Exhibit K. Sadler Declarationb, #12 Exhibit L. Zamora Declaration, #13 Exhibit M. Jones Declaration, #14 Exhibit N. Rupani Declaration, #15 Exhibit O. Connor Declaration, #16 Exhibit P. Williams Declaration, #17 Exhibit Q. Kanter Declaration, #18 Exhibit R. Forbes Declaration, #19 Exhibit S. Mariappuram Declaration)(Hebert, Christen)

Exhibit P

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
AUSTIN DIVISION
WHOLE WOMAN’S HEALTH, et al.,
Plaintiffs,
v.

Civil Action No. __________

AUSTIN REEVE JACKSON, et al.,
Defendants.
DECLARATION OF AMANDA BEATRIZ WILLIAMS IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS’
MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
I, Amanda Williams, declare as follows:
1.

Since 2016, I have served as the Executive Director of Lilith Fund for

Reproductive Equity, Inc. (“Lilith Fund”), a nonprofit corporation incorporated in Texas. Lilith
Fund’s mission is to provide financial assistance and emotional support for people needing
abortions in Texas, foster a positive culture around abortion, and fight for reproductive justice
across the state. Lilith Fund offsets the costs of the abortion care itself rather than the expenses
involved in traveling to an abortion provider in Texas.
2.

My primary responsibilities as Executive Director are working with our Board of

Directors to ensure the execution of our mission, maintaining the financial health of the
organization, and supervising staff and volunteers.
3.

I served on Lilith Fund’s Board of Directors from 2012 to 2015, fielded requests

to its hotline as a volunteer from 2011 to 2012, and I have more than a decade of experience in
the reproductive rights, health, and justice field in Texas.

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4.

I provide the following testimony based on personal knowledge acquired through

my service at Lilith Fund, including consultation with staff and Board members, and review of
the organization’s business records.
Lilith Fund’s Services
5.

Lilith Fund has nine staff members and more than thirty volunteers, and we

primarily serve people living in central and southeast Texas. The hotline program director fields
requests from Texans who are unable to afford the cost of their abortion. They are typically
referred to us by an abortion provider in the state. Lilith Fund prioritizes callers at later
gestational ages because they risk exceeding Texas’s 22-week gestational age cut-off for a legal
abortion and because the cost of an abortion increases as pregnancy progresses.
6.

When we can help a caller with the cost of their abortion care, we send a financial

voucher to the abortion provider with whom the caller has scheduled an appointment. Lilith Fund
pays the abortion provider after the abortion is completed. Last year, our hotline program
director fielded requests from 4,557 callers requesting help paying for an abortion. We were only
able to fund 27% of the callers at an average amount of $348.
7.

The average gestational age at which Lilith Fund’s clients obtain an abortion is

thirteen weeks, and almost all are past eight weeks. Seventy-two percent of our clients are people
of color and fifty-nine percent are parents. At least half do not work for pay and forty-three
percent lack health insurance, requiring them to pay out-of-pocket for any healthcare. Even those
who have health insurance generally do not have coverage for abortion services. In addition to
Texans with pregnancies at later gestational ages, Lilith Fund prioritizes callers living with
multiple hardships, including homelessness, incarceration, intimate partner violence, and
physical or mental health issues. In 2018, we hired a social worker to provide case-management

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services connecting clients to resources, including food banks, programs offering job assistance,
help paying utility bills, and free diapers.
8.

To help address clients’ immediate needs, such as transportation, lodging, and

meals, we coordinate with organizations offering practical support for obtaining an abortion.
Lilith Fund has a practice of following up with clients soon after their scheduled abortion
appointment. Each year, we learn that some clients never made it to their abortion provider
because they were unable to meet travel expenses even with our contribution towards the cost of
the abortion itself.
9.

Lilith Fund connects clients to story-telling opportunities aimed at combatting the

stigma surrounding abortion care, and we promote campaigns that educate Texans about their
rights and conduct trainings about abortion access within the state.
10.

Lilith Fund provides these services to people seeking abortion care in Texas to

express and effectuate its deeply-held belief that all people should have access to a full range of
reproductive healthcare.
Impact of SB 8 on Lilith Fund and its Clients
11.

I understand that Texas Senate Bill 8 (“SB 8”), which is scheduled to take effect

on September 1, 2021, would ban the provision of abortions at approximately six weeks of
pregnancy, prohibit aiding or abetting such abortions, and prohibit intending to aid or abet such
abortions. I also understand SB 8 to enable private parties to sue individuals and entities who
engage in such activities for a minimum of $10,000 per abortion performed in violation of the
ban.
12.

If SB 8 prevents Texas abortion providers from offering abortion care after six

weeks gestational age, virtually all our clients would need to leave the state for care. This would

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mean traveling even greater distances than they already do; increased transportation costs,
including air fare; increased lodging and childcare costs; significant delays to care as they try to
gather these resources; more expensive care due to the delays; more lost wages; a greater risk of
losing their jobs; and greater difficulty maintaining the confidentiality of the abortion or
pregnancy. In my experience, these challenges would be onerous for nearly all our clients and
insurmountable for some.
13.

When Texas sharply curtailed abortion access at the start of the COVID-19

pandemic last year, our clients faced steep waiting times for an appointment and traveled an
average of 606 miles to reach a provider legally authorized to perform abortions. One client was
pushed to 19 weeks of pregnancy and forced to travel nearly 1,600 miles round-trip out of state
after a Texas clinic within three miles of her home was no longer able to care for her. Because of
the delays to their abortion care, the average cost of our clients’ care shot up to $2,400. Most
clients had no choice but to stay at a hotel for three to four days. We managed to increase our
voucher amount to $355 but were unable to provide any funds for countless callers. At least
seven of our clients were forced to carry to term.
14.

Lilith Fund believes that SB 8 is unconstitutional and thus invalid. If it takes

effect, however, I expect individuals or organizations opposed to abortion access to sue us for
providing assistance, including financial support, to Texans seeking abortion care. We have
already been targeted for our efforts to ensure abortion access for all Texans regardless of
circumstance. Last year, seven towns in Texas enacted ordinances drafted by the Director of
Right to Life of East Texas declaring themselves “sanctuary cities for the unborn”; branding us,
along with other abortion funds, as “criminal organizations”; and seeking to bar us from
operating in the towns. After we challenged the ordinances in federal court as violations of our

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First Amendment rights to free expression and association, the towns revised the ordinances to
make it clear that we could continue our work in support of equitable abortion access throughout
Texas. In response to a defamation suit we brought with other abortion funds against the Director
of Right to Life of East Texas, he stated: “Abortion is the murder of innocent unborn human
beings. The Lilith Fund and other abortion-aiding organizations all take part in the murder of
innocent unborn human beings.”1 There have been twelve countersuits filed against us and other
abortion funds by individuals opposed to abortion access since we brought the defamation suit.
15.

Lilith Fund’s total operating budget is less than $1.5 million. Having to pay a

minimum $10,000 judgment for every abortion we facilitate would easily bankrupt us. Even if
we successfully assert constitutional defenses in response to lawsuits filed against us under SB 8,
the legal bills we would incur in the process would likely bankrupt us. I understand that lawyers
typically charge hundreds of dollars per hour for their services. We had to raise money to retain
lawyers to represent us in the defamation lawsuits discussed above. To date, Lilith Fund has
neither been able to secure commitments from attorneys to represent us on a pro bono basis if we
are sued under SB 8, nor have we been able to raise additional funds to pay for legal services. It
is my understanding that attorneys who represent us in an SB 8 lawsuit cannot recover their costs
or fees from the plaintiffs or the state even if successful, but SB 8 states they could be held liable
for the plaintiffs’ costs and attorney’s fees in some circumstances.
16.

Lilith Fund is also a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit in the Western District of Texas

to challenge the constitutionality of certain abortion restrictions. That case is captioned Whole
Woman’s Health Alliance v. Paxton, No. 1:18-cv-500-LY.

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In that case, as in this one, our

Robin Y. Richardson, Defamation lawsuit filed against Right to Life East Texas Director, Tyler Morning Telegraph
(July 16, 2020),
https://tylerpaper.com/news/local/defamation-lawsuit-filed-against-right-to-life-east-texas-director/article_eb2431f7070a-53bf-89a2-5bc98d57acac.html.

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attorneys are representing us on a pro bono basis because they have the opportunity to recover
their fees from the state under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 if Lilith Fund is a prevailing party.
17.

By preventing us from helping vulnerable Texans obtain abortion care in their

state and forcing us to shift our financial support to out-of-state abortion services, which is either
impracticable or onerous for our clients, SB 8 would frustrate our mission.
Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1746, I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true
and correct.
Dated: July 12, 2021

Amanda Beatriz Williams

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