BALTIMORE — Erin Case has put thousands of miles on her car as a manager at the Baltimore Abortion Fund, which supports those seeking the procedure by helping foot the cost and offering rides to and from the clinic.
Often, she drives women who, for privacy reasons, don’t want to ask a friend or relative to take them. But on a recent day, her passenger was someone in town from Texas, among the many who leave that state for abortions because of a new law known as SB 8, which lets any individual sue those who perform the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy or even help a patient get to a clinic.
Roughly half of the people the nonprofit Baltimore fund helps are already from out of state, and Case is among those who see the number rising as abortion faces its most serious legal threat in decades. Not only did the U.S. Supreme Court allow the Texas law to go forward last month, it is poised to rule this summer in a case from Mississippi that many say could overturn the court’s landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.
