A Small Illinois City at the Center of a Seismic Shift in Abortion Access

Carbondale, Ill., a liberal enclave within driving distance of 10 states with abortion bans, has become a hub for the procedure. Last year there were nearly 11,000 abortions in this city of 21,000.

By Elizabeth Williamson
Photographs by Julia Rendleman
Dec. 7, 2025

The cars and pickup trucks from Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Indiana and Mississippi started arriving early in the morning at the Alamo Women’s Clinic in Carbondale, Ill. Men were not allowed inside, so most waited in the parking lot, scrolling or dozing, exhausted after driving through the night.

Abortion is legal in Illinois, but the state is surrounded by others that have largely banned the procedure in the three years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. As a result, Illinois now leads the nation in out-of-state abortion patients. Carbondale, a college town in Illinois’s southern tip within driving distance of 10 states with abortion bans, has become a major abortion hub.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/us/politics/abortion-carbondale.html

Three years after Alabama’s abortion ban, many must make tiring trips for care

July 11, 2025
Rhonda Sonnenberg

About every other day in Alabama, a woman suspecting she is pregnant seeks abortion counseling at an Alabama clinic without knowing how far into the pregnancy she is. She may be a mother with three young children at home. She might be in an abusive relationship. Or perhaps she is a student who someday wants children — just not now.

Once a clinic nurse determines the approximate stage of the pregnancy, she will refer the patient to an out-of-state abortion facility where the procedure is still legal. Meanwhile, staff at the Birmingham-based Yellowhammer Fund would work to guarantee a financial contribution for her travel, hotel and child care costs, if necessary, and cobble together funding for the abortion care from additional funding sources. Yellowhammer’s work is a lifeline for pregnant people in Alabama, providing grassroots support and resources when they need it most.

Continued: https://www.splcenter.org/resources/stories/alabama-abortion-ban-assistance/

Kentucky – She needed an abortion but KY’s ban prevented it. ‘Somebody is going to die,’ doctors warn

By Alex Acquisto
January 16, 2025

When Genevieve Postlethwait’s water broke in her sleep one July morning, she knew something was wrong. At 17 weeks pregnant, it was too soon for this to be normal.

That afternoon at her OB-GYN’s office, Genevieve and her husband saw their daughter’s moving shape on an ultrasound screen. But she looked different — opaque, hard to see, almost “squished,” the 35-year-old recalled. The ultrasound tech was “clearly rattled and didn’t know what to say.”

Continued: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article297484283.html

Last year’s US Supreme Court ruling left women struggling to find abortions

Evelyn Hockstein, Gabriella Borter
July 22, 2023

The day Alan Braid opened his abortion clinic for business in Albuquerque, New Mexico, last August, he looked out at a waiting room full of patients fresh off trips from Texas, some with suitcases in tow.

Several months later, Dr Braid’s daughter Andrea Gallegos drew a similar crowd to the opening of their abortion clinic in Carbondale, Illinois, with patients arriving from far-flung states to end pregnancies.

Continued: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/roe-v-wade-texas-abortion-b2366363.html

22.07.2023

How one quiet Illinois college town became the symbol of abortion rights in America

Chris Kenning, USA TODAY
Jun. 4, 2023

CARBONDALE, Ill. – The 26-year-old had never heard of the distant southern Illinois town, but it had become the closest option.

So she cobbled together money. Found child care. Asked her brother for a ride. And set off early one morning to drive north across state lines to 22,000-person Carbondale.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2023/06/04/carbondale-illinois-abortion-clinics/70180040007/