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According to a University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll conducted in February, the number of respondents who said the laws on abortion should be less strict rose to 37% from 32% two years ago.

Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi said she became an abortion provider in Texas over 15 years ago when she \"realized the desperate need for abortion providers in our state.\"

\"This bill, if it goes into effect, is going to be catastrophic for our state,\" said Moayedi, an OB-GYN and board member with Physicians for Reproductive Health. \"Our state is still very much suffering from this pandemic. We're the most uninsured state in the country; we have the most uninsured children in the country.\"

When abortions weren't initially considered immediately medically necessary at the start of COVID-19 restrictions last year, Moayedi said she saw patients having to wait up to two months to get an abortion, while others went out of state for the procedure.

\"You don't stop abortions in the state, you stop abortions for only a certain group of people,\" she said. \"There was a huge contrast between who had the resources financially, time-wise, job-wise, childcare-wise and, quite frankly, immigration status-wise to leave the state, and who could not.\"

Moayedi said she is hopeful the ban is merely a \"publicity stunt photo opportunity.\"

The bill's signing comes two days after the U.S. Supreme Court announced it will take up Mississippi's appeal of lower court decisions striking down a state ban on all abortions after 15 weeks. The abortion rights case, which will be heard next term, is seen as a major challenge to Roe v. Wade and the first direct test on the issue for the court's new conservative majority.

In a nationwide Pew survey conducted last month, 59% said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

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