The ministers smiled as they held the doors open, grabbed the hands of those who passed by, and urged many to keep praying and showing up. Some responded with a hug. A few grimaced as they squeezed past.

Shelley Koch, a longtime resident of southwest Virginia, had witnessed a similar scene many Sunday mornings after church services. On this day, however, it took place in a parking lot outside a modest government building in Bristol, where officials had just made a proposal that threatened to tear the fabric of her community apart.

For months, residents of the city have battled over whether clinics restricted by strict anti-abortion laws in neighboring Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia should continue to be allowed to jump the border and operate there. The proposal that is on the table, submitted by anti

–

abortion activists, which they shouldn’t be doing. The local pastors were there to spread that message.

We’re trying to figure out what we’re doing right now, said Koch, who supports abortion rights. We were on our heels the entire time.

The conflict is not unique to this frontier community, which boasts a place where a person can stand in Virginia and Tennessee at the same time. Similar disputes have erupted across the country following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion.

As clinics have been forced to close in Republican-dominated states with strict abortion bans, some have moved to cities and towns just across the border in states with more liberal laws. The goal is to help women avoid long distances. Yet that effort is not always smooth: the politics of border towns do not always match those in their capitals. They may be more socially conservative, with residents objecting to abortion on moral grounds.

Anti

–

abortion activists in Virginia and elsewhere have played on that sentiment, proposing changes to zoning and other local ordinance laws to prevent the clinics from taking up residence. Since Roe was overturned, such local ordinances have been identified as a tool for officials to monitor where patients can get an abortion, lawyers and legal experts say.

In Texas, even before Roe was overthrown, more than 40 cities banned abortion services within their city limits. That trend, led by anti

–

Abortion activist Mark Lee Dickson has since successfully spread to politically conservative cities in Iowa, Louisiana, New Mexico, Nebraska and Ohio.

Under Roe, the Supreme Court had ruled it unconstitutional for state or local lawmakers to create a substantial obstacle to a patient seeking an abortion. That rule no longer exists.

While such local ordinance changes are no longer needed in Texas, which now has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, Dickson says he and others will continue to pursue them in other states with liberal abortion statutes.

We will go ahead and do everything we can to protect life, he said.

In New Mexico, which has one of the most liberal abortion laws in the country, activists in two counties and three cities in the eastern part of the state have successfully called for ordinance changes restricting the procedure. Democratic officials have since proposed legislation to ban them from interfering with access to abortion.

In the college town of Carbondale, Illinois

., inois,

a state where abortion remains widely accessible, anti

–

abortion activists have asked zoning laws to block the opening of future clinics after two are already operating in the city. So far they have not been successful.

Meanwhile, some states that have severely restricted access to abortion are trying to make it more difficult for residents to terminate their pregnancies elsewhere. University of Idaho staff who refer students to a clinic just 8 miles

(13 kilometers)

away in the liberal-leaning state of Washington could be charged with felonies under a recently passed state law.

Perhaps no other place sums up the issue quite as neatly as its sister cities Bristol, V

irgini

a

.

and Bristol, Tenn

. to eat.

For

the

deer

reversal

there was an abortion clinic in Bristol, Tennessee for decades

. to eat.

Anus

Row the reversal

which led to the Volunteer State’s strict abortion law, the clinic jumped across the state line to Bristol, V

irgini

A.

That’s when anti

–

abortion advocates began to push back. At the request of some concerned citizens, the socially conservative, faith-based Family Foundation of Virginia helped draft an amendment to the city’s zoning code stating that, other than where the existing clinic is located, land cannot be used to build a pre-born human life.

No one wants their city to be known as the place where people come to take human lives. That’s just not a reputation that the people of Bristol want for their area, said Foundation President Victoria Cobb.

The amendment has stalled in the Planning Commission as the city’s attorney, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and others question its legality. Meanwhile, the Board of Supervisors in Washington County, which surrounds Bristol, passed a similar restrictive zoning ordinance on Feb. 14, and at least three counties have since passed resolutions declaring their pro-life stance, according to the Family Foundation.

Before Roe was overturned, such zoning restrictions would have been unconstitutional, ACLU attorney Geri Greenspan noted. Now, however, we are in unfamiliar legal territory, she said.

It’s a struggle that residents

like like like

Koch had not expected it.

In 2020, with Democrats in full control of the state government, they reversed restrictions on abortion services and envisioned the state as a

safe

refuge. Virginia now has one of the South’s most lenient abortion laws, which comforted Koch when Roe was overturned.

Now, however, her relief has given way to fear.

I realized how little I knew about how local government works, she said. It’s been a disadvantage.

The Bristol Womens Health clinic is battling multiple lawsuits but would not be affected by the proposed regulation unless it tries to expand or make other changes. While some residents oppose the facility, they are more concerned that this industry will grow and that Bristol will simply become a multi-state center of the abortion industry, said Rev. Chris Hess, who, as the pastor of St. Anne Catholic Church, has advocated for the change to the zoning plan.

Debra Mehaffey, who has been protesting outside abortion clinics for more than a decade, said people are coming to Bristol from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, “from all over to get abortions, you know, because they can’t get them in their own country .” stands.

“So it will be great to see it completely abolished,” she said.

Clinic owner Diane Derzis, who owned numerous other abortion clinics, including the one in Mississippi at the center of the recent Supreme Court decision, is downplaying the pushback. She said she

Ha

He has become accustomed to protests and even experienced the bombing of a separate clinic.

But Derzis is also committed to much more

post Roe

battles in the future.

Abortion is under attack and will be for years to come, she said.