Sign Up
..... Connect Australia with the world.
Categories

Posted: 2022-06-26 02:06:18

The Yellowhammer Fund, which is based in Alabama and provides financial support to women seeking abortions, has received an influx of calls in the past day from people confused about the changing laws and seeking guidance and money to travel elsewhere for abortions.

“People who had appointments for next week no longer have appointments,” said Laurie Bertram Roberts, executive director of the fund. “The person who runs the call line is very overwhelmed.”

In Milwaukee, women who called the Affiliated Medical Services abortion clinic were met with a recorded message that said abortions were no longer available.

“We are saddened by this decision and how it will impact women everywhere,” the message said, suggesting patients travel to Illinois or Minnesota, where abortions are still legal.

The closest clinic to the shuttered Milwaukee facility is a Planned Parenthood facility in Waukegan, Illinois, just across the border from Wisconsin, which opened in 2020 in anticipation of a moment like this.

Loading

“We’ve been preparing for this for years,” said Mary Jane Maharry, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood of Illinois.

Maharry said that the facility had been inundated with calls since the Supreme Court’s decision and that it was looking to hire additional staff members to prepare for 20,000 to 30,000 more patients coming from outside the state each year. Since it opened, the clinic has provided services to about 1000 women from outside the state each year.

The 21-year-old woman in West Virginia said she had initially been in shock when she learned her appointment was cancelled, crying so much that she got a headache. Then, she said, she quickly went into “survival mode,” researching which states were banning abortion and where she could travel to get one. Eventually, she found an abortion clinic in Roanoke, Virginia, about four hours away, and made an appointment for Wednesday. But she said she will remain anxious until then.

“I’m just hoping, like, can I just make it to Wednesday,” she said. “I just need to make it to Wednesday.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

View More
  • 0 Comment(s)
Captcha Challenge
Reload Image
Type in the verification code above