“This is a devastating blow to millions of people who will find themselves in a vast desert of abortion,” Jennifer Welch, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood in Illinois, told a news conference on Tuesday. They will face a “frightening dilemma,” she said: “If they travel thousands of miles to Illinois to get the care they need, if they look for an illegal alternative or become pregnant against their will.”
“Fortunately for all of us here, abortion is legal in Illinois and will remain legal in Illinois,” she said.
If Rowe v. Wade is repealed by returning the issue of abortion to states, those like Illinois – who are codified in protecting the right to abortion – will face treatment from patients in nearby states who ban it. The Supreme Court on Tuesday confirmed the authenticity of the draft opinion, stressing that it was not the final decision expected in June. More than half of the US states could ban abortions if Rowe v. Wade were lifted, including 13 states with so-called “trigger bans” that would ban abortions within their borders almost immediately if the notable case were stopped. If that happens, people may be forced to travel from their home states to get to the nearest clinic to provide the procedure, according to an analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion research organization.
That’s the result reproductive health care providers have come to expect, said Illinois Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Paula Thornton-Greer.
“We have been preparing for this for years,” she said, citing the organization’s efforts to build new health centers near Wisconsin and Indiana, as well as infrastructure for providing health care services and mail for qualified patients.
“We will be ready to meet the moment,” Thornton-Greer said, “and take advantage of the determination and make sure people get the care they need.”
Clinics in some states are already doing this work
Another state potentially facing the new reality is New Mexico, which borders several states that have severely restricted or would likely ban abortions if the Supreme Court overturned Rowe v. Wade. This includes Texas, which has a controversial law banning six-week abortions – before many women find out they are pregnant – and which allows citizens to sue people who provide such services. A similar law was signed Tuesday by Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, which borders New Mexico a short distance along the westernmost edge of its handle. New Mexico’s neighbor in the west, Arizona, could also limit abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, as well as Utah, directly in the northwest.
Asked if New Mexico would be ready for an influx of people seeking legal abortion, the Democratic governor said it was “difficult to know whether you were prepared or not.”
But New Mexico “will stand as a place that protects and supports women wherever you are,” Gov. Michel Lujan Grisham told CNN’s Lead on Tuesday. “This is a country that will not turn women or their families into second-class citizens or work to restrict their constitutional rights.
New Mexico is already doing this work, she added: “Women and their families have been coming to New Mexico for a long time because (other states) are restricting access.”
By comparison, in Illinois, of the more than 46,000 abortions performed in 2020, more than 9,600 procedures were performed on residents outside the state, according to the State Department of Public Health. Most of them – more than 6,500 – come from neighboring Missouri, which has only one abortion clinic.
If Rowe v. Wade is overturned, the Planned Parenthood of Illinois expects to see twice to five times more abortion patients out of state who do not have access to the care where they live, Thornton-Greer said.
“If you look at all the states around Illinois,” she said, “those states are ready to lose access once the Supreme Court makes its decision.”
“So we have been focused for years on building this physical infrastructure to meet this increased demand,” she said, adding: “We are ready and getting ready.”
In Colorado, where the Gov. last month signed a law codifying the right to abortion, health care providers are preparing to serve more patients from neighboring states, where the procedure is likely to be banned if Roe v. Wade is overturned, the CNN affiliate said. KCNC. This includes the Colorado Doula project, a non-profit organization that advocates for abortion rights.
“For every state that says no, we hold the line,” said one of the members of the Confidence Omenai group in front of the station. Rowe vs. Wade may fall, but we won’t.
Hundreds of thousands more would seek care outside the country
Meanwhile, the owner of the only abortion clinic in Mississippi – the clinic itself at the center of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion – plans to open a new clinic about a thousand miles away.
Jackson’s women’s health organization, also known as the Pink House, has challenged a 15-week ban on abortions in Mississippi. Awaiting the outcome of the Supreme Court, similar to the draft opinion, its owner and president plans to expand in New Mexico, she told CNN Tonight.
“For a long time we thought that our time was limited and that Rowe would be canceled,” Diane Derzis said on Tuesday. “So we made plans.”
Her clinic in Jackson, Mississippi, treats patients outside the state, namely in Texas, she said.
“Now multiply that by the numbers from the states that haven’t banned it yet,” Derzis said. “And that will give you some idea of the nightmare that will become this. Hundreds of thousands of women are trying to get medical help.”
Just hours after the Supreme Court’s draft expired, the Santa Clara County, California Board of Supervisors unanimously decided to allocate $ 3 million to Planned Parenthood to expand services before the expected influx of patients out of state.
“The leaked Supreme Court ruling, which will overturn Rowe v. Wade, has made so many of us fears,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez told the draft opinion.
Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, in Northern California, has been treating 80 patients who have crossed state borders to receive care since July, the organization’s president and CEO Stacey Cross told a news conference Monday before the Politico report on the past draft opinion of the majority. Seventy percent of them, she said, are colored people, and 62 percent have an annual family income of less than $ 26,000.
The new money from the county will be used to expand the facility’s clinics by adding examination rooms, doubling telehealth efforts nationwide and doubling the number of tests performed at the health center’s lab, Cross said. access to patients who need it most “
CNN’s Paradise Afshar, Cherry Mosberg and Amanda Musa contributed to this report.
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