Abortion Clinics Witness Surge In Out-Of-State Appointments

Abortion clinics are seeing more mothers come from other states to obtain the procedure.

After the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade — the 1973 opinion which claimed that abortion is protected under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution — many red states tightened regulations on abortion. According to a report from Axios, abortion clinics in blue states are therefore seeing an influx of demand.

One facility in Illinois told the outlet that the share of clients coming from states other than Illinois and Missouri rose from 5% to 40% since the Court’s decision on June 24, while wait times to secure an appointment increased from three days to as much as three weeks. Abortion doctor Michael Belmonte likewise noted that clients from Texas, which regulates abortion beyond six weeks gestation, are flooding his Denver clinic so much that wait times may increase to six weeks.

A Kansas facility called Trust Women saw abortions increase from 800 in the first six months of 2021 to over 1,300 in the first six months of this year as the number of out-of-state mothers seeking abortions grew sevenfold, according to a report from NPR.

Meanwhile, entities such as the Chicago Abortion Fund and the Colorado-based Cobalt Abortion Fund are bankrolling mothers’ abortion tourism. The latter group has spent over $103,000 on travel subsidies in the months since the Supreme Court’s decision.

Beginning with the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson in early May, several large corporations began announcing that they would cover travel expenses for employees obtaining abortions in other states.

“Our company remains committed to removing barriers and providing comprehensive access to quality and affordable care for all of our employees, cast members and their families, including family planning and reproductive care, no matter where they live,” executives from Disney said in a memo. The entertainment conglomerate employs 75,000 people in Florida, where abortion is now regulated after 15 weeks gestation.

Companies such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Levi Strauss, Amazon, and Apple now offer similar policies. Yelp Chief Diversity Officer Miriam Warren explained that her company’s abortion incentive has been a “wonderful recruiting tool.”

Indeed, young professionals expressed in a recent poll conducted by Lean In — a nonprofit founded by former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg — that they desire to work for a company that “publicly supports access to abortion” and offers benefits accordingly. Among those in managerial positions, 43% of women and 40% of men are considering a job change, while 84% of women under 40 believe that the overturn of Roe v. Wade will “negatively impact women’s ability to advance in the workforce.”

Amid a surge in financial support, abortion conglomerate Planned Parenthood is bankrolling midterm election efforts in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, and Michigan.

“This is an election about power and control,” Planned Parenthood Votes Executive Director Jenny Lawson said in a recent statement. “Should these out-of-touch politicians gain or stay in power, they will continue doing everything they can to ban all abortion, throw health care providers and pregnant people in jail, and endanger the health and lives of pregnant people across the country.”