Vox Sentences: Federal court rules it’s fine to make El Paso women drive 550 miles for abortions

Reproductive freedom through really long road trips

A group from Texas displays flags during an anti-abortion rally on the Mall in Washington, DC. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

• A federal appeals court has upheld a Texas law that threatens to shutter more than half of the state's abortion clinics.

  [NYT / Manny Fernandez and Erik Eckholm]

• You can read the whole opinion here.

  [Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals]

• The primary restriction being weighed requires abortion clinics to qualify as "ambulatory surgical centers" (ASCs).

  [WSJ / Ana Campoy]

• Reproductive rights activists oppose ASC requirements, arguing that abortion clinics are safe as is, and that the requirement places an unbearably expensive burden on clinics.

  [Center for Reproductive Rights]

• The law included a number of other provisions as well, including a near-total ban on abortions after 20 weeks, a requirement that women take abortifacient drugs in the presence of a doctor (necessitating multiple hospital trips), and requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

  [LA Times / James Queally]

• The key legal questions with restrictions like this are if the regulation serves a compelling state interest, and if it places an undue burden on women seeking abortions.

  [Vox / Sarah Kliff]

• The court did exempt a McAllen, Texas, clinic from the requirements, noting that if it closed, women in the area might have to travel 235 miles to get an abortion. But women in El Paso, which isn't exempted, will have to travel 550 miles to the nearest clinic.

  [Slate / Mark Joseph Stern]

• The ruling was expected, as the Fifth Circuit is generally very conservative. An appeal to the Supreme Court is expected.

  [NYT / Manny Fernandez and Erik Eckholm]

Stuff's still happening in Greece

Here is a picture of the Acropolis. (Milos Bicanski/Getty Images)

• Greece and its creditors are still passing economic reform plans back and forth, seeking a deal to reduce the debt and provide the country with funding it needs to avoid defaulting.

  [FT / Peter Spiegel]

• The basic dispute is about austerity, with Greece arguing that the European lenders are demanding too much (including reforms Greek leaders don't like) and the lenders noting that not taking their money would entail much, much more austerity because the country would be locked out of international credit markets.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• Perhaps the most significant ask of the creditors is for Greece to scale down pensions, arguing that the current contribution system demands too much of businesses and deters them from hiring.

  [NYT / Suzanne Daley]

• Wolfgang Munchau: Greek leader Alexis Tsipras needs to offer more meaningful reform concessions, like pension cuts or a tax hike, or else a Greek exit from the EU starts to look like the least-bad option.

  [FT / Wolfgang Münchau]

Swimming while black

(Video still by Brandon Brooks)

• The police officer who was caught on video slamming a black teenage girl to the ground and pointing a gun at other black attendees of a pool party in McKinney, Texas, has resigned.

  [ABC News / Meghan Keneally]

• The police reportedly arrived after a security guard tried to remove black attendees from a party at the pool, organized by a black resident of the neighborhood. White adults in the neighborhood accused the black teens present of trespassing and allegedly made racist comments, after which a fight broke out.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• Police officers then began ordering black teens to sit on the grass, handcuffing some of the boys. Officer Eric Casebolt, who resigned today, proceeded to slam a teen girl face first into grass before pulling his gun and causing the kids to disperse.

• The story came out in part because the victims' white friends who were also at the party stood up for them, and recorded the abuse by Casebolt.

  [Vox / Jenée Desmond-Harris]

• McKinney is part of the Dallas metro area, among the most segregated in the country.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

Misc.

• Baseball for the blind works by having the bases and balls emit constant, loud beeps.

  [Now I Know / Dan Lewis]

• The case for an American sovereign wealth fund, which is a technical way of saying "the federal government should buy up much of the means of production."

  [Quartz / Roger Clay Jr.]

• Matt Yglesias makes a surprisingly compelling argument for burning a (fictional) child alive.

  [Vox / Matt Yglesias]

• Benny Johnson got fired from BuzzFeed for plagiarism and then repeatedly lied to the Washington Post about how, exactly, he recovered from getting fired. Somehow the Post's profile of him is still basically complimentary.

  [Washington Post / Ben Terris]

Verbatim

• "Vincent Musetto, a retired editor at the New York Post who wrote the most anatomically evocative headline in the history of American journalism — HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR — died on Tuesday in the Bronx."

  [NYT / Margalit Fox]

• "It’s jarring to realize that the woman who would later ask her ex-lover if he was thinking about her when he fucked his new girlfriend was at one point too timid to fight for her own vanity plate."

  [Hazlitt / Soraya Roberts]

• "Though from the outside it might look wholly indistinct, we who have felt its symbolic weight know this is no ordinary box; this is a box that can make grown men cry."

  [Longreads / Nathan Rabin]

• "Santorum calls crowd of 4 in rural Iowa a success."

  [Des Moines Register / Joshua Hafner]

• "He could use a wake-up call. But, come on, I mean ... Ten years is not a wake-up call. It’s more like a sledgehammer to the face."

  [Brad Hansen to Washington Post / Eli Saslow]

• "The multiplicity community insists on being seen as healthy—even normal. This is our reality, they argue. Why are you imposing your reality onto us? Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)—and its controversial precursor, Multiple Personality Disorder—are terms roundly rejected by the community, and most of them don't feel that they belong in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) at all.

  [Vice / Tori Telfer]

Song of the Day

• Jamie xx, "Sleep Sound"

  [YouTube]

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via