And the Supreme Court could soon make it take even longer.
By Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux
Data Analysis by Holly Fuong
Charts by Elena Mejía
Published Apr. 18, 2022
Last week, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a law outlawing abortion in the state. If it isn’t blocked by the courts, the legislation — which has no exceptions for rape or incest — would be one of the harshest measures to become law at a time when anti-abortion lawmakers are all but competing with each other to pass new restrictions.
But in a sense, Oklahoma legislators who want to end
abortion don’t have much more to do in their state. New data exclusively
analyzed by FiveThirtyEight shows that it’s already very difficult to get an
abortion appointment in Oklahoma — and it has nothing to do with the state’s
new ban. Ever since the Supreme Court allowed a highly restrictive abortion law
to go into effect in Texas last September, Oklahoma’s four abortion clinics
have been overrun with demand from out-of-state patients. When a team of
academic researchers posed as pregnant people and called the Oklahoma clinics
at the beginning of March, all four told the callers they couldn’t schedule
them for an appointment.
Continued: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/it-can-already-take-weeks-to-get-an-abortion/