Inside the plan to create an abortion refuge for a post-Roe era

Abortion providers in blue-state Illinois are laying the groundwork for an influx of patients from states poised to ban abortion if the Supreme Court overturns its landmark precedent

By Caroline Kitchener
March 28, 2022

FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, Ill. — When the woman called Planned Parenthood to schedule her abortion, Alexandria Ball picked up the phone and explained exactly what would happen next.

Ball and her colleagues would book her bus ticket to Illinois.

They would put her up in a hotel.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/28/abortion-sanctuary-roe-v-wade/


As Missouri Clinic Awaits Its Legal Fate, Abortions In State Have Virtually Halted

As Missouri Clinic Awaits Its Legal Fate, Abortions In State Have Virtually Halted

March 12, 2020
Sarah McCammon

Missouri could soon become the first state in the nation without a clinic providing abortions, but Planned Parenthood officials say the last remaining one there has already all-but ceased performing the procedure.

The clinic, Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, is at the center of a licensing dispute between the organization and Missouri Republican Gov. Mike Parson's administration. That clinic's future is in the hands of a state commission that is expected to issue a decision in the coming weeks or months.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/814768754/as-missouri-clinic-awaits-its-legal-fate-abortions-in-state-have-virtually-halte


USA – “Failed” abortions, a period-tracking spreadsheet, and the last clinic standing: the controversy in Missouri, explained

“Failed” abortions, a period-tracking spreadsheet, and the last clinic standing: the controversy in Missouri, explained
Hearings will determine if Missouri will be the first state without an abortion clinic.

By Anna North
Oct 31, 2019

At a hearing over an investigation of Missouri’s lone abortion clinic, a state official testified to something that has disturbed reproductive health advocates in the state and beyond: With the help of state medical records, his office had created a spreadsheet tracking patients’ menstrual periods.

The goal, according to the Kansas City Star, was to investigate “failed” abortions, instances in which the patient needed to return a second time to complete the procedure. The idea was apparently that, by gathering data on patients’ periods, state officials would know who was still pregnant after a scheduled abortion.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2019/10/31/20939890/missouri-abortion-clinic-hearing-periods-roe-wade


New Illinois Abortion Clinic Anticipates Post-Roe World

New Illinois Abortion Clinic Anticipates Post-Roe World
A regional clinic across the river from Missouri reflects how both sides of the abortion divide are looking toward a landscape in which some states might ban abortions outright.

by Sabrina Tavernise
Oct. 22, 2019

FAIRVIEW HEIGHTS, Ill. — When it opens just across the river from St. Louis this week, the new Planned Parenthood clinic in Illinois will be one of the largest abortion clinics in the Midwest, set up to serve around 11,000 women a year with various health services, double the capacity of the clinic it is replacing.

Its size says as much about the future as the present: With the Supreme Court’s shift to the right, activists on both sides of the abortion divide are adjusting their strategy, anticipating that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that extended federal protections to abortion, might eventually be overturned and that some states would jump at the chance to ban abortions.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/22/us/missouri-illinois-planned-parenthood.html


USA – The Strategy Behind Where to Build Abortion Clinics

The Strategy Behind Where to Build Abortion Clinics
The bifurcation of abortion access in the United States means more clinics should be built on the border of states with onerous anti-choice restrictions, advocates say.

Oct 11, 2019
Erin Heger

After 18 months of secret construction, Planned Parenthood will open one of the nation’s largest abortion clinics in southern Illinois this month, expanding access not just in the state but across the midwest.

The new health center in Fairview Heights, Illinois, will replace the city’s smaller Planned Parenthood clinic, which provided family planning and medication abortion services to more than 5,000 patients in 2018. The location of the new facility, just 13 miles from Missouri’s last remaining abortion clinic in St. Louis, was strategically chosen to reach as many patients in the region as possible, said Yamelsie Rodriguez, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2019/10/11/the-strategy-behind-where-to-build-abortion-clinics/