Divided between two states, the city at the heart of the American debate on abortion

The American city of Bristol, with a population of around 44,000, is a divided community.

Shared between Virginia and Tennessee, the state line literally runs along Main Street. Although both camps have much in common, there is one major difference: abortion is illegal in Tennessee. That’s been the case since the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that gave individual states, rather than the federal government, the power to legislate on abortion, prompting 12 states to pass near-total bans.

So the city’s only abortion clinic, Bristol Women’s Health, moved less than a mile away to continue practicing legally in Virginia.

But just because abortion is legal in Virginia doesn’t mean the battle for abortion access is over.

“It’s like a gut punch,” said Barbara Schwartz, co-founder of SLAAP, the State Line Abortion Access Partnership. They help people traveling to Virginia get abortions at Bristol Women’s Health Clinic.

“As soon as one approach doesn’t work, the anti-abortion mob springs up in Bristol and tries another.”

On December 22, Bristol Circuit Court will hear the clinic’s case against an eviction notice served by their landlords, brothers Chase and Chadwick King in April 2024.

The clinic’s lawyers say it has the right to renew its lease for a total of six more years. But if the judge rules in favor of the building’s owners, the clinic will be forced to find new accommodation.

This is not the owners’ first attempt to remove the clinic from their property. The brothers claimed the clinic fraudulently concealed the fact that they performed abortions, which they say they are “categorically opposed to.” The case was dismissed in September last year, with Justice Sage Johnson ruling:

“If [the landlords] If they had done a simple internet search of their tenants, as any reasonably prudent landlord probably would, they would have discovered that the clinic did indeed provide abortion services, as is clearly stated on their website.

Clinic owner Diana Derzis, who declined to comment at the hearing, previously said she hoped to keep the clinic in the city even if it were evicted. However, she noted that there are few other suitable facilities in Bristol, Virginia.

The Bristol clinic’s departure would be a “big blow” to abortion access, according to Barbara Schwartz, co-founder of SLAAP, the State Line Abortion Access Partnership.

Since Roe v Wade was overturned, states where abortion is legal have become destinations for out-of-state abortion seekers, with 155,000 people crossing state lines last year, according to the Guttmacher Institute (GI).

The organization also found that more than 9,200 people traveled to Virginia just to have the procedure last year.

“Bristol’s position means the clinic is the closest place, within several hours, to a safe, legal abortion for millions of southerners.”

Victoria Cobb, director of the anti-abortion lobby Family Foundation, also notes that Bristol’s location puts it at “the epicenter of the debate.”

Ms Cobb launched the first in a series of efforts to restrict abortion in Bristol using local regulations. This tactic is used by anti-abortion activists in states that allow abortion. The logic is simple: If you can’t win at the Capitol, why not fight at City Hall?

“Residents don’t want to see their town turn into an abortion destination,” Ms. Cobb says. “We are happy to help them.”

The Family Foundation has argued in the past that the clinic’s existence goes against zoning regulations, which prohibit the use of buildings in a way that could endanger life.

“Why wouldn’t this extend to unborn life?” asked Ms. Cobb.

Their order states that no new clinics should be allowed to open in Bristol and that expansion of the existing clinic should be blocked.

Similar rules have been used in other parts of the United States to restrict abortion, including in neighboring Washington and Russell counties. But Professor Laura Hermer, an expert on abortion regulation in the United States, says these efforts are largely “virtue signaling.”

“I would be surprised if many of these towns had health care providers, let alone abortion,” she said.

The debate heated up in Bristol, when the council agreed to examine the issue.

“It’s been more stressful than managing a parking lot. It’s not something that’s really been addressed at a local level before,” Jay Detrick, the city’s planning director, told the BBC.

Ultimately, the city attorney ruled that imposing restrictions on a medical facility was not within his jurisdiction.

Shortly after the city decided not to intervene, another group decided to try to shut down the clinic – this one led by Texas pastor Mark Lee Dickson.

The pastor has lobbied city councils across the United States to enforce the Comstock Act, a 152-year-old federal law that prohibits sending or receiving material through the mail that could induce an abortion.

Ninety-three local governments passed ordinances to enforce the Comstock Act, even closing a Planned Parenthood clinic in Lubbock, Texas.

Pastor Dickson hopes his order filed in Bristol will have the same result. This issue has not yet been examined by the Council, but it remains optimistic.

“The tabling or rejection of such a measure by a local government in no way means that the initiative is dead,” he told the BBC.

Kimberly Smith, co-founder of SLAAP, plans other campaigns. She claims anti-abortion activists are targeting Bristol because of its unusual political makeup:

“They come here because we were the red part of a blue state. If they collapse here, it weakens the entire framework of state rights.”

Indeed, even if the clinic wins its case this week and can remain in place, its opponents are not being discouraged, Pastor Dickson told the BBC.

“As long as the cries of unborn babies are silenced in Bristol, efforts will be made to push the city council to fulfill its obligation to protect unborn Bristolians.”