Each week, hundreds of women seek an abortion at the southern tip of Illinois.
Colleen McNicholas is new off performing two fetus removals while a ringing telephone rapidly stops her.
She said, eyes widening, “Oh, ugh,” and then dashed off to another room.
At the Planned Parenthood clinic in Fairview Heights, 15 miles east of St. Louis, 58 women had abortions just the day before. However, there are still a lot of appointments for the new day; It’s possible that as many as 100 people seeking abortion or family planning will enter the facility.
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Every week, hundreds of women travel to the southern tip of Illinois to get an abortion. Millions of people live in a 1,800-mile stretch of 11 Southern states, most of which have banned pregnancy terminations since the Supreme Court took away women’s constitutional rights to end their pregnancies.
However, once they reach the clinic in one of the most pro-abortion states in the country, they face yet another obstacle. Opponents of abortion wearing neon hazard vests frantically attempt to dissuade passersby from doing what they are about to do by waving them down at the gates.
Even though staff members began working 10-hour shifts and the clinic opened on Saturdays, the waitlist for abortions has only increased from two days to nearly three weeks since the Supreme Court decision in June.
We are on this teeter-totter of “what can we do here to make more space for the people who are going to be fleeing their home state?” with every piece of litigation, every new constitutional amendment, and every new restriction on abortion in a state that has some access. McNicholas remarked.
There is talk of opening on Sundays because the clinic anticipates receiving 10,000 abortion patients this year. The staff came up with an emergency plan that would allow abortions to take up more space in some patient rooms that are normally used for vasectomies or contraceptive consultations. A recreational vehicle has been transformed into a mobile clinic that can provide abortions to patients across state lines.
That actually won’t be sufficient to keep up, McNicholas anticipated.
She’s looking at a proposed six-week early termination boycott in Florida which could send considerably additional ladies from the South looking for fetus removals up north. Additionally, she is keeping a close eye on how a Texas judge will rule on a case aimed at preventing the sale of the abortion drug mifepristone.
She stated, “Any additional decision could really change demand once more.” It’s like crisis management all year long.
After Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, signed a bill into law that effectively shut down several abortion clinics in his state and resulted in long waiting lists in facilities in neighboring states, Planned Parenthood and the nearby Hope Clinic had already been dealing with a surge of patients from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and other states months before Roe v. Wade was overturned. Planned Parenthood and the Hope Clinic were both affected by this. In January 2022, the clinics established a new regional logistics center to assist out-of-state patients in booking accommodations, flights, gas, bus rides, and rental cars to either facility.
On June 24, just six months later, the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was not a right guaranteed by the Constitution. States like Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee began enacting trigger laws that prohibited abortions within hours.
According to Kawanna Shannon, the director of patient access at the Planned Parenthood clinic, approximately 70 women now call the center each day for assistance getting to an abortion clinic in southern Illinois. A navigator first discusses their payment options when they arrive at the line. Other specifics include: How will the patient arrive at the location? Is she able to pay for her meals while she is there? Is childcare required for her?
The center works with more than 30 nonprofit organizations across the country that raise funds for abortion access to book the travel for patients who are unable to pay for hotels, bus tickets, or plane tickets.
This is not the end of the work.
A member of staff is available at all times to take frantic calls from patients who are having trouble traveling. In an effort to help a patient flee her abusive partner, workers scrambled to arrange a ride to the airport in the middle of the night. When a car breaks down on the way to southern Illinois, they fix it. In order to ensure that one woman, who had an abortion, was able to return to her family on Christmas Day, they dealt with canceled flights during a difficult winter travel season.
Shannon stated, “It won’t slow down.” In fact, we are looking after the entire Southern region. Because we are the closest, all of the patients from the South actually travel to southern Illinois. They all require some form of assistance, whether it be in the form of travel or reimbursement for procedures.
Two new abortions took place two hours south of the Planned Parenthood clinic.
