— The call came into the southern Illinois abortion clinic on a recent weekday: A young woman from Missouri was on the line, frantic because she no longer had the money to pay for her $470 procedure, which was scheduled for the next day.
The caller panicked because she assumed she’d have to cancel and reschedule later, whenever she could come up with the money. The prospect of delaying such a time-sensitive procedure was terrifying.
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But a calm voice on the line asked a few questions about the patient and how much she could afford at that moment.
The woman said she had just started a new job and would be getting her first check soon but was in the middle of a pay period. She also mentioned that she has a child and an unexpected bill came up, swallowing the money she had set aside to pay to terminate the pregnancy.
“I don’t want you to commit something you don’t have,” said the woman who took the call, Kawanna Shannon, director of patient access at the new Regional Logistics Center, which is housed in the Planned Parenthood Health Center in Fairview Heights.
Shannon spent a few minutes successfully searching various abortion funds to help cover the cost of the procedure. Then she went over a few instructions for the caller’s appointment, which would continue as scheduled the next day.
“Thank you, ma’am,” the patient repeated several times, her panicked tone melting into relief.
Calls of this sort from women throughout the Midwest and South were pouring into the clinic all day — and they’re expected to become even more abundant soon.
With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, Illinois is preparing for a massive rise in out-of-state patients traveling here to terminate a pregnancy. If Roe were to crumble, providers have predicted an additional 14,000 patients each year will cross state lines to terminate pregnancies in southern Illinois.
Facing this imminent influx, the two abortion providers in the region partnered to open the Regional Logistics Center in January. The center is operated jointly by Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Hope Clinic for Women, an abortion clinic in Granite City.
Dedicated case managers there assist traveling patients with overcoming various common barriers to abortion access: finding lodging, booking transportation and securing child care, as well as navigating various funding sources to help pay for abortions.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker visited the Planned Parenthood in Fairview Heights on Wednesday to champion reproductive rights, calling the agency’s work “lifesaving and life-changing.” He noted that more than 75% of the clinic’s patients already come from other states.
“Let’s be crystal clear about one point: Abortion is health care,” he said. “By the time many of these out-of-state patients make it to Fairview Heights, Illinois, they have traveled further than anyone should have to, physically and emotionally. People should not have to endure trauma after trauma to be in control of their own bodies. But that’s exactly the burden this right-wing Supreme Court and anti-choice governors and state legislators increasingly put on the backs of millions of women.”
For almost half a century, the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade has affirmed the right to terminate a pregnancy nationwide. But a stunning draft opinion leaked earlier this month indicated that a majority of justices intend to strike down the 1973 decision, leaving the matter of abortion rights to individual states.
The official ruling in the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is expected to come over the summer.
In the absence of Roe, experts anticipate roughly half of all states would prohibit abortion, including Missouri and almost all of the Midwest. And states with strong reproductive rights protections like Illinois are preparing to take on the burden of patients from all the states where abortion would be outlawed.
Brian Westbrook, executive director of the organization Coalition Life, which is based in St. Louis, said he and other abortion opponents have been confident for a while that Roe v. Wade would eventually fall.
“It’s not a matter of if it will be overturned,” he said. “It’s a matter of when. The pro-life movement will only do more as a result. This is not necessarily a victory — it’s a shifting of work from the federal level down to the state level.”
The caller panicked because she assumed she’d have to cancel and reschedule later, whenever she could come up with the money. The prospect of delaying such a time-sensitive procedure was terrifying.
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But a calm voice on the line asked a few questions about the patient and how much she could afford at that moment.
The woman said she had just started a new job and would be getting her first check soon but was in the middle of a pay period. She also mentioned that she has a child and an unexpected bill came up, swallowing the money she had set aside to pay to terminate the pregnancy.
“I don’t want you to commit something you don’t have,” said the woman who took the call, Kawanna Shannon, director of patient access at the new Regional Logistics Center, which is housed in the Planned Parenthood Health Center in Fairview Heights.
Shannon spent a few minutes successfully searching various abortion funds to help cover the cost of the procedure. Then she went over a few instructions for the caller’s appointment, which would continue as scheduled the next day.
“Thank you, ma’am,” the patient repeated several times, her panicked tone melting into relief.
Calls of this sort from women throughout the Midwest and South were pouring into the clinic all day — and they’re expected to become even more abundant soon.
With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, Illinois is preparing for a massive rise in out-of-state patients traveling here to terminate a pregnancy. If Roe were to crumble, providers have predicted an additional 14,000 patients each year will cross state lines to terminate pregnancies in southern Illinois.
Facing this imminent influx, the two abortion providers in the region partnered to open the Regional Logistics Center in January. The center is operated jointly by Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Hope Clinic for Women, an abortion clinic in Granite City.
Dedicated case managers there assist traveling patients with overcoming various common barriers to abortion access: finding lodging, booking transportation and securing child care, as well as navigating various funding sources to help pay for abortions.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker visited the Planned Parenthood in Fairview Heights on Wednesday to champion reproductive rights, calling the agency’s work “lifesaving and life-changing.” He noted that more than 75% of the clinic’s patients already come from other states.
“Let’s be crystal clear about one point: Abortion is health care,” he said. “By the time many of these out-of-state patients make it to Fairview Heights, Illinois, they have traveled further than anyone should have to, physically and emotionally. People should not have to endure trauma after trauma to be in control of their own bodies. But that’s exactly the burden this right-wing Supreme Court and anti-choice governors and state legislators increasingly put on the backs of millions of women.”
For almost half a century, the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade has affirmed the right to terminate a pregnancy nationwide. But a stunning draft opinion leaked earlier this month indicated that a majority of justices intend to strike down the 1973 decision, leaving the matter of abortion rights to individual states.
The official ruling in the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is expected to come over the summer.
In the absence of Roe, experts anticipate roughly half of all states would prohibit abortion, including Missouri and almost all of the Midwest. And states with strong reproductive rights protections like Illinois are preparing to take on the burden of patients from all the states where abortion would be outlawed.
Brian Westbrook, executive director of the organization Coalition Life, which is based in St. Louis, said he and other abortion opponents have been confident for a while that Roe v. Wade would eventually fall.
“It’s not a matter of if it will be overturned,” he said. “It’s a matter of when. The pro-life movement will only do more as a result. This is not necessarily a victory — it’s a shifting of work from the federal level down to the state level.”
With Roe v. Wade at risk, Illinois becomes destination for abortions
If Roe were to crumble, providers have predicted an additional 14,000 patients each year will cross state lines to terminate pregnancies in southern Illinois.
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