US clinics scramble to shift patients

Missouri, June 29

They call her desperate, scared and often broke. Some are rape and domestic violence victims, others are new mothers, still breastfeeding infants. Another pregnancy so soon, they say, is something they just can’t handle.

“Heart wrenching,” said Angela Huntington, an abortion navigator for Planned Parenthood in Missouri, who is helping callers reschedule cancelled abortion appointments — sometimes hundreds of miles away from their homes — after the fall of Roe vs Wade.

The ruling has set off a travel scramble across the country, with a growing number of states mostly banning the procedure. Some cities, including Kansas City and St Louis, are also drafting plans to help with travel logistics.

Huntington has been preparing for it for months. Even before the SC’s decision to end constitutional protection for abortion, the procedure had become difficult to nearly impossible to obtain in states including Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri.

“Basically, they were living in a post Roe era,” she said. Now, a fresh round of laws are taking effect. Staff at a clinic in Nashville were flooded with calls from patients trying to understand the new legal landscape, after a federal court allowed the state’s ban on abortion. — AP

Fall of Roe vs Wade

Clinic operators are moving, doctors counselling crying patients, donations are pouring into nonprofits and one group is dispatching vans to administer abortion pills. Some cities, including Kansas City and St Louis, are also drafting plans to help with the travel logistics