By Deidre McPhillips and Annette Choi, CNN
Tue June 24, 2025

For 2½ hours in February 2024, Gracie Ladd and her husband sat in heavy silence as they drove from their home in southern Wisconsin to Chicago. Their spirits were as cold and gray as the Midwestern winter passing by the car windows; Ladd was 20 weeks pregnant and had recently learned that a severe fetal condition made the developing baby “incompatible with life.” Staying pregnant could put her own health at risk, too.

But abortion wasn’t an option in Wisconsin, where a 175-year-old state law had effectively banned the procedure at the time. That law has since been overturned, but Ladd, her family and her doctors were stuck in a legal gray area that raised fear and worry. And instead of being surrounded by familiar comforts at one of the most distressing points of her life, Ladd had to take time off from work, coordinate child care for her 2-year-old son and travel more than 100 miles from home to a health care provider she had never met.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/health/abortion-state-travel-2024-dg