CHICAGO — Each year, thousands of women cross state lines to have an abortion in Illinois — and that number could grow exponentially as pending U.S. Supreme Court decisions and new laws in various states challenge reproductive rights across large swaths of the nation.
But women traveling here to terminate a pregnancy will have a new resource designed to make the process easier: Two southern Illinois abortion providers have partnered to create one centralized location where patients can get assistance with travel needs like finding transportation, booking lodging and setting up child care.
The Regional Logistics Center is operated jointly by Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Hope Clinic for Women, an abortion clinic just over the Missouri border in Granite City. Designated case managers there can arrange travel, connect patients with financial assistance, help them find a place to stay and overcome other common logistical barriers to accessing abortion, particularly when traveling long distances.
The center — which is housed in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Fairview Heights — opened Friday, just before the 49th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court abortion rights case Roe v. Wade on Saturday.
At a virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony for the center on Friday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker called the project “lifesaving and life-changing work.”
“With reproductive rights under attack across the United States, it’s never been more vital for the state of Illinois to ensure access to reproductive services,” he said. “On the 49th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we all thought we would be vigorously celebrating this important milestone. Instead, we are forced to contend with the possibility that there may not be a 50th anniversary of this fundamental right.”
The center’s launch comes at a time when abortion rights are under fire across the country: Some reproductive rights advocates fear this might be the last anniversary of Roe where the near five-decades-old ruling is still the law of the land, as state measures and court decisions increasingly chip away at the right to terminate a pregnancy.
“Together, we’re breaking down the silos anti-abortion politicians created and proving that in community, with innovation and determination, we can secure a future with abortion access,” said Yamelsie Rodríguez, president and CEO of Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region.
The U.S. Supreme Court is poised midyear to rule on one of its most significant abortion cases in history: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health will determine the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that prohibits abortion past 15 weeks gestation — and potentially challenge Roe, which established the right to terminate a pregnancy in 1973, limiting state restrictions on the procedure prior to fetal viability.
Illinois has long been considered an abortion rights haven in the Midwest, surrounded by states with more restrictions on the procedure such as mandatory wait times, gestational limits and tighter regulations on providers.
If Roe were to fall, abortion rights advocates predict that roughly half of states across the country would severely limit or ban the procedure. Many of those states are in the Midwest, including each one that neighbors Illinois.
In 2019, more than 7,500 out-of-state women traveled here to have an abortion, constituting about 16% of all terminated pregnancies statewide, according to the most recent Illinois Department of Public Health data. The number of women traveling here from other states has increased every year since 2014.
An October report by Reproductive Health Services predicted that if Roe were to fall, southern Illinois abortion providers could in the first year see some 14,000 more patients from outside their service area.
The Planned Parenthood affiliate and Hope Clinic have already invested $10 million for additional staffing, infrastructure and clinical capacity to “prepare for a post-Roe reality,” according to the report.
The state’s distinction as an oasis for reproductive freedom has long been considered an embarrassment to organizations that oppose abortion.
A recent post on the Illinois Right to Life website encouraged supporters to “keep praying” that the court overturns Roe.
But the message also urged Illinoisans to remember “that while the prospect of Roe being overturned is great news for much of America, it puts Illinois and, for that matter, the entire Midwest,” in a precarious spot.
“Because of Illinois’ radical, pro-abortion laws, not only will it remain business as usual for the abortion industry here in our state, thousands upon thousands more women will cross our border to have the lives of their children ended here,” the website said. “We must act now to stop this disaster from unfolding.”
‘Enormous influx’
The new center in southern Illinois has been in the works for several years, as the two local abortion providers saw an increasing number of patients coming from other neighboring states, many with ever-tightening abortion regulations.
In September, a Texas law went into effect prohibiting abortions as early as about six weeks gestation, before many women even know they’re pregnant, all but banning the procedure in the nation’s second-largest state.
Dr. Erin King, executive director of the Hope Clinic for Women, said her clinic now sees several patients who travel from Texas every week, as well as more women coming from other southern states likely due to a “ripple effect” from the void of abortion access in Texas.
She described one patient she saw earlier this month: The woman found out she was pregnant on a Wednesday, made the appointment on Friday and flew in on Saturday to have a medication abortion at Hope Clinic. The same day, she flew back to Texas, King recalled.
“And that was her first trip on a plane, ever,” King said. “If she had not lived in Texas … most of the visit could have happened over the phone, like a telemedicine visit, or a short trip via gynecologist. I think what is so hard for people to understand is that this is care that shouldn’t take all of this coordination and all of this funding. ”
Since mid-December, King said her clinic has treated 20% more patients than anticipated, many from out of state.
“We’ve just seen this enormous influx of patients coming from farther and farther away,” she said. “We’re seeing a lot more patients in the last month needing help with travel, help with funding, all the things the Regional Logistics Center focuses on. We’ve been moving in this direction for a couple of years. But we’ve seen this need increase exponentially in the last month.”
Several years ago, Pritzker pledged to make Illinois “the most progressive state in the nation when it comes to standing up for women’s reproductive rights.” In 2019, he signed the Reproductive Health Act, which established the procedure as a “fundamental right” for women in Illinois.
Pritzker earlier this month donated $100,000 from his campaign to the Personal PAC Independent Committee, whose purpose is preserving reproductive rights in Illinois “by making independent expenditures to elect pro-choice candidates to state and local office,” according to campaign finance documents.
Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, noted the pivotal role of abortion rights in Illinois amid the increasingly restrictive Midwest.
“Illinois is an incredibly important state for access,” she said. “Illinois is surrounded by states that have worked to really limit access to care.”
‘Based on need’
The center will help connect abortion patients with various resources to help with everything from paying for the procedure to travel costs to finding a place to stay overnight, all of which can be difficult to figure out quickly for a time-sensitive procedure.
One of those resources is the Chicago Abortion Fund, a nonprofit that provides financial, emotional and logistical support “to do whatever it takes to make sure people can get to their appointments,” said Megan Jeyifo, executive director.
She said the need for assistance has skyrocketed in just a few years. In 2018, the nonprofit served 183 people. In 2021, that number went up to roughly 3,000. The organization spent about $450,000 on abortion funding and support in 2021, roughly seven times the amount spent in 2018, she said.
“It was a very quick increase, pretty fast, but definitely based on need,” she said.
Most folks the nonprofit serves come from other states, primarily Missouri and Indiana, as well as others in the Midwest, she said. But recently the Chicago Abortion Fund has been getting more calls from Texans, she said.
“Destigmatizing abortion is a really critical component,” said Jeyifo, adding that her own abortion experiences have informed her work with the nonprofit.
She said she had to navigate parental consent laws for her first abortion and then had to travel for her second abortion.
“I think about what it took for me to travel,” she said. “I make really clear to the callers that the difficulty you face in accessing an abortion has nothing to do with the morality of an abortion. It’s a systemic failure in this country. Abortion is health care.”
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