Divided between two states, the town at the heart of America’s abortion debate

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

Divided between Virginia and Tennessee, the state's border literally runs along Main Street. While both sides have many similarities, there is one major difference: Abortion is illegal in Tennessee. That's been the case since a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that gave individual states, rather than the federal government, the power to legislate abortion bans, leading 12 states to enact near-total bans.

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

But just because abortion is legal in Virginia doesn't mean the fight over abortion access is over.

“It’s like whack-a-mole,” said Barbara Schwartz, co-founder of SLAAP, the Statewide Abortion Access Partnership. They help people coming to Virginia get an abortion at the Bristol Women's Clinic.

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

On December 22, Bristol District 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 argue that it has the right to extend the lease for another six years. But if the judge rules in favor of the building's owners, the clinic will have to look for a new home.

This is not the first attempt by landlords to evict the clinic from their property. The brothers alleged that the clinic fraudulently concealed that they were performing abortions, which they claimed to be “vehemently opposed to.” The case was dismissed last September by Judge Sage Johnson, ruling:

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

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

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

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 alone for the procedure last year.

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

Victoria Cobb, director of the anti-abortion lobby Family Foundation, also points out that Bristol's location puts it at “ground zero of the debate”.

Ms Cobb launched the first of several attempts to restrict abortion in Bristol using local bylaws. This tactic is used by anti-abortion activists in states where abortion is legal. The logic is simple: If you can't win on Capitol Hill, why not fight at City Hall?

“Local residents don't want their town to become an abortion destination,” Ms. Cobb said. “We're happy to help them.”

In the past, the Family Foundation has argued that the clinic's existence violates zoning rules that prohibit buildings from being used in ways that could endanger lives.

“Why wouldn't this spread to unborn life?” – asked Miss Cobb.

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

Similar rules have been used in other parts of the U.S. to restrict abortions, including in nearby Washington and Russell counties. But Professor Laura Germer, an expert on abortion rules in the US, says the efforts are in many ways “virtue signaling”.

“I would be surprised if many of these cities had any medical facilities, let alone abortion services,” she said.

The debate in Bristol became heated as the council agreed to look into the matter.

“It was more stressful than dealing with parking. It hasn't gone down to the local level before,” Jay Detrick, the city's planning director, told the BBC.

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

Shortly after the city decided not to intervene, another group decided to try to shut down the clinic—this time led by Texas pastor Mark Lee Dixon.

The pastor lobbied councils across the US to enforce the law. Comstock's Lawa 152-year-old federal law that prohibits the sending or receiving in the mail of materials that may induce an abortion.

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

Pastor Dixon hopes his ruling, filed in Bristol, will achieve the same result. It has not yet been reviewed by the Council, but he remains optimistic.

“The introduction 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, expects more campaigns to come. She says anti-abortion activists are targeting Bristol because of its unusual political profile:

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

Indeed, even if the clinic wins its case this week and is able to stay put, its opponents will not be deterred, Pastor Dixon tells the BBC.

“As the cries of unborn babies in Bristol are silenced, efforts will be made to force the city council to live up to its obligations to protect the unborn residents of Bristol.”