RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — When Florida enacted a six-week abortion ban last week, clinics in several other southern and mid-Atlantic states stopped women from visiting the area where they live. We started our activities after realizing that there was a need for services that were no longer available.
Three doors north, North Carolina health care providers are rushing to expand access to services and reduce wait times.
“We're already booked,” said Catherine Farris, chief medical officer for South Atlantic Family Planning. “We have appointments in place with patients who were unable to come to our clinic in Florida at the end of April.”
Their response is part of a growing trend in the United States. Since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, prompting more than 20 states to enact laws banning or severely restricting abortion, states with less restrictive regulations have welcomed women who seek abortions or seek abortions. We are taking measures to It is necessary to terminate the pregnancy.
Since the court overturned Roe's decision in June 2022, some Democratic-controlled states have made abortions more accessible to out-of-state women. Several states have adopted laws that protect health care workers in their states from investigation for providing abortions to women in prohibited states. These measures include allowing health care providers to prescribe abortion pills, the most common abortion method, through telemedicine.
Officials in California, New Mexico, Oregon and other states have used tax dollars to increase access to abortion.
Florida recorded more than 84,000 abortions in 2023, a slight increase from 2022. As of April 1, the state had reported about 14,700 abortions this year, and a significant number of women may consider moving out of state.
“Patients will travel when they really want an abortion,” said Mara Buchbinder, a professor of social medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We know that.”
Florida was once a go-to state for women from other Southeastern states, but in neighboring states like Georgia and South Carolina, many women were forced to have abortions after six weeks of pregnancy before they knew they were pregnant. is prohibited.
About 7,700 abortions were performed in Florida last year on out-of-state patients, according to state data.
But states have steadily narrowed access. Anticipating Roe's reversal, Congress passed a 15-week suspension in April 2022, which went into effect despite a court challenge. A six-week abortion ban was passed in 2023, which would only come into effect if the previous ban was upheld by a court. The state Supreme Court upheld the ban last month, and the new law went into effect immediately.
A November referendum asking voters to codify the right to abortion into Florida's constitution could overturn the ban. But at least until then, abortion advocacy groups in Florida will have to organize a number of out-of-state trips.
For women who are more than six weeks pregnant, South Florida is now the furthest from legal medical care of any densely populated area in the United States. After that, the average cost per abortion is expected to jump from $600 or $700 to as much as $1,800 or more. said Daniella Martins, director and caseworker team leader at the for-profit Women's Emergency Network.
Martins said she hopes her group will help women go to Virginia and further north to areas such as Maryland and Washington, D.C. She said it may be difficult to raise enough money to keep her promise, but she tries not to turn away customers in need.
“We’ve seen a lot of support,” she said. “It’s nowhere near what we predict we need.”
Another organization, Brigid Alliance, which provides travel and support around the country to women seeking abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, is preparing to meet even more needs in the coming months.
Sera Sippel, the group's interim executive director, said the coalition is adding six new logistics coordinators, including four who speak Spanish, and will be working with clinics in Puerto Rico that will be an option for people who speak Spanish specifically. He said he is affiliated with the company.
North Carolina is expected to see the largest influx of patients, and even before Florida's ban, 32% of abortions provided at family planning clinics there were for out-of-state patients, Farris said. .
But while Florida may be the most convenient location for women given its geographic proximity, North Carolina is not without its own hurdles. The state's 2023 law allows abortions up to the 12th week of pregnancy, but requires two in-person visits to a health care provider, 72 hours apart.
These additional steps can turn a one-day process into a week-long process, said Carolina, a nonprofit organization that operates a helpline for abortion care callers in North Carolina and South Carolina. said Justin Orlovsky Schnitzler, director of engagement at the Abortion Fund.
Health care providers in North Carolina are also concerned that the arrival of new patients will lengthen wait times for abortions, which currently range from five to 20 days. Farris said Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, which serves North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, will expand abortion services for seven additional days and reduce provider scheduling at its North Carolina clinic. It said it is trying to avoid this by adjusting and expanding availability.
“We're all willing to put in the work,” she said. “I think it's important to remember that operationally it's very difficult and this is a chaotic system.”
Farris, who performs abortions in North Carolina, must refuse patients who fall outside state law because they are more than 12 weeks pregnant. She initially pointed to Virginia, which allows abortions up to 24 weeks. If reservations are not available, women can travel to Maryland, Washington state, or locations further north.
The Carolina Abortion Fund has a staff of six and a network of volunteers, but even before Florida's ban, Orlovsky-Schnitzler said working there often felt like having two full-time jobs. he said.
Volunteers sometimes stay up until midnight to help coordinate emergency abortions, and in some months the organization has received as many as 1,000 calls. After Roe was overthrown, call numbers increased by 400%.
“That’s not an exaggeration,” she said.
According to data provided by the center, it received 650 calls in April alone.
Although the organization is often short on funds, Orlovsky-Schnitzler said that doesn't prevent staff from answering every call to get the help they're looking for.
Staff at Preferred Women's Health Center in North Carolina, which has clinics in Charlotte and Raleigh, respond to about 4,000 calls each week, mostly from women in southern states, the executive director said. Kara Hales said.
Of the roughly 13,000 abortions performed each year at the clinic since the Roe decision was overturned, about 70 percent are performed by out-of-state patients, he said.
The center also operates two clinics in Georgia under the state's six-week ban. Hales said operating a clinic there could be a foreshadowing of what's to come in Florida.
“As soon as you pee on a pregnancy stick, they start running,” she says.
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Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
