“In briefs filed Wednesday in the Justice Department’s challenge to Texas’ abortion ban, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton touted the trips Texas women are making out of state to obtain abortions as a point in his favor in defending the law. Paxton was addressing an argument that the Biden administration had made for why it should be allowed to challenge the six-week abortion ban in federal court. The Justice Department said that the way the ban affects interstate commerce gives the United States the authority to bring a lawsuit challenging it. Paxton shot back on Wednesday in his brief by arguing that the Justice Department did not cite any ‘actual evidence that the Texas Heartbeat Act burdens interstate commerce.'”

“‘What evidence that does exist in the record suggests that, if anything, the Act is stimulating rather than obstructing interstate travel,’ Paxton said, pointing to an increase in Texas women seeking to travel to Kansas and Oklahoma to obtain the procedure. In an earlier court filing, the leader of the clinic organization Trust Women told a court that call volume for appointments at its clinics in Kansas and Oklahoma had doubled, and a significant portion of those patients were from Texas. ‘About two-thirds of our [Oklahoma City clinic] patient appointment calls now come from Texas patients seeking abortions that are unavailable throughout their home state,’ the provider said, noting that typically only a quarter of the clinic’s patients are from Texas. In Kansas, where in 2019 only 25 abortion patients were from Texas, approximately half of the calls to its Wichita clinic are now coming from Texas patients, according to the filing” – CNN.