RALEIGH, North Carolina – When Florida enacted a six-week abortion ban last week, clinics in several other South and Mid-Atlantic states sprung into action, knowing that women would turn to them for services no longer available where they live.
Health care providers in North Carolina, three states north, are rushing to expand availability and shorten wait times.
“We are already taking appointments,” said Katherine Farris, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. “We have appointments scheduled with patients who were unable to get in, in the last days of April in Florida.”
Their reaction is part of a growing trend in the United States: since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, encouraging more than 20 states to adopt laws that prohibit or severely limit abortion, states with looser restrictions have taken steps to accommodate women who want or need to terminate their pregnancies.
Since the court overturned Roe in June 2022, some Democratic-controlled states have made it easier for out-of-state women to obtain abortions. Several have adopted laws that protect state health care providers from being investigated for providing abortions to women in states with bans. These measures included allowing providers to prescribe abortion pills, the most common abortion method, via telehealth.
Officials in California, New Mexico, Oregon and other states have used taxpayer money to increase access to abortion.
Florida reported more than 84,000 abortions in 2023, a slight increase from 2022. As of April 1, the state reported approximately 14,700 abortions this year, potentially leaving a substantial number of women considering leaving the state.
“Patients will travel when they are desperate to have an abortion,” said Mara Buchbinder, a professor of social medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We know that.”
At one point, Florida was a preferred state for women from other southeastern states with restrictions, including neighboring Georgia and South Carolina, which ban abortions at around six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant. .
Last year, about 7,700 abortions in Florida were performed on out-of-state patients, according to state data.
But the state has steadily tightened access. Anticipating Roe’s reversal, the Legislature passed a 15-week ban in April 2022, which took effect despite a court challenge. In 2023, it passed a six-week abortion ban that would only go into effect if the previous ban was upheld in court. The state Supreme Court upheld the ban last month and the new law quickly took effect.
A referendum in November asking voters to codify the right to abortion in the Florida Constitution could reverse the ban. But at least until then, abortion advocacy groups in Florida will still need to organize a lot of out-of-state travel.
For women more than six weeks pregnant, South Florida is now the furthest from a legal provider of any highly populated area in the US. Afterwards, the average cost per abortion is expected to jump from $600 or $700 to as much as $1,800 or more, said Daniela Martins, a board member and social worker team leader at the Women’s Emergency Network, a non-profit organization. nonprofit that helps people in the region pay for abortion and other reproductive health care.
Martins said her group envisions helping women reach Virginia and places even further north, like Maryland and Washington, DC. She said she is committed to not turning away customers in need, although raising enough money to honor that commitment can be a challenge.
“We’ve seen a lot of outpouring of support,” she said. “It’s nowhere near what we project we’ll need.”
Another group, Brigid Alliance, which provides travel and support across the country to women seeking abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, is preparing for more needs in the coming months.
Serra Sippel, the group’s interim executive director, said the alliance is adding six new logistics coordinators, including four who speak Spanish, and is partnering with a clinic in Puerto Rico, an option especially for Spanish speakers.
One of the biggest patient flows is predicted for North Carolina, where, even before Florida’s ban, 32% of abortions performed at the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics were for out-of-state patients, Farris said.
But while it may be the most convenient place for Florida women, given its geographic proximity, North Carolina has its own set of obstacles. The 2023 state law allows abortions up to 12 weeks into pregnancy, but requires two in-person visits to a provider 72 hours apart.
These extra steps can turn a one-day procedure into a week-long case, said Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler, director of engagement at the Carolina Abortion Fund, a nonprofit organization in North Carolina and South Carolina that operates an abortion line. support to help callers with abortion care.
Providers in North Carolina also fear that the arrival of new patients will lengthen the wait time for an abortion, currently five to 20 days. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, which serves North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, is trying to avoid this by rolling out seven additional days of abortion services and adjusting provider hours at North Carolina clinics to expand availability, Farris said.
“We’re all willing to do the work,” she said. “Operationally, it’s incredibly challenging and I think it’s important to remember that this is a chaotic system.”
Farris, who provides abortions in North Carolina, has to turn away patients who don’t qualify under state law because they are more than 12 weeks along. She initially refers them to Virginia, which allows abortions up to 24 weeks. If no appointment is available, women can travel to Maryland, Washington or places further north.
The Carolina Abortion Fund has six employees and a network of volunteers, but working there often felt like working two full-time jobs, even before Florida’s ban, Orlovsky-Schnitzler said.
Volunteers sometimes stay up until midnight to help someone coordinate an emergency abortion, and there have been months when the organization has received as many as 1,000 calls, she said. After Roe was overturned, calls increased by 400%.
“That’s not an exaggeration,” she said.
The center received 650 calls in April alone, according to data provided.
The organization often runs out of money, but Orlovsky-Schnitzler said that doesn’t stop workers from answering every call to get the help people are looking for.
Staff at the North Carolina Women’s Preferred Health Center, with clinics in Charlotte and Raleigh, receive about 4,000 calls a week, mostly from women in Southern states, said Executive Director Calla Hales.
Since Roe was overturned, about 70 percent of the approximately 13,000 abortions performed at clinics each year were performed on out-of-state patients, she said.
The center also operates two clinics in Georgia under the state’s six-week ban. The clinics’ operations could provide a preview of what’s to come in Florida, Hales said.
“As soon as they pee on a pregnancy stick, they come running in,” she said.
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Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
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