For months, thousands of people in surrounding states have traveled to Oklahoma to seek abortion care — that is, if they were able to get an appointment and could afford to travel. Now that local lawmakers have passed the harshest anti-abortion law in the country, they will likely have to travel even farther to receive care. Many won’t be able to afford the journey.
Before Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signed the near-total abortion ban, funds to get out-of-state patients to Oklahoma clinics already weren’t enough to meet demand: One nonprofit operator said a fund specifically meant to support those in the state often ran out of money about halfway through the month. About 5,000 people got an abortion in Oklahoma in 2019, data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.
While abortion funds have seen mounting support from states and individuals in the wake of the leaked Supreme Court decision draft that could overturn Roe v. Wade, the money may not be enough to cover the rising costs for people who have to travel farther to get the procedure they need as states like Oklahoma ban nearly all access to abortion care. Democratic-led states have pledged millions of dollar toward clinics and nonprofits in an effort to preserve abortion access, but the systems in place may still struggle to help everyone. According to the National Network of Abortion Funds, its 90 partner organizations could only support 26% of the requests they received in 2019.
