Tuesday 4 October 2022 12:18 AM Planned Parenthood plans first mobile abortion clinic for women in deep red ... trends now
Reproductive health giant Planned Parenthood will bring a mobile abortion clinic to red-state borders to assist women legally barred from obtaining the procedure.
The clinic will operate in southern Illinois and travel along the border between neighboring Kentucky and Missouri, whose legislatures have passed near total bans.
Missouri specifically banned abortion with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest immediately after the Supreme Court threw out the legal right to an abortion in June, in what's known as a trigger law.
In Kentucky, abortion is illegal from the point of fertilization - unless the woman is at risk of death or serious permanent injury with no exceptions for rape or incest.
Bans across a wide swath of Republican states have compelled women to travel hundreds of miles to an abortion rights-friendly state.
The mobile clinic will significantly reduce the amount of travel time that women coming from red states have to allot for when planning to leave the state for the procedure.
Planned Parenthood will get the mobile clinic up and moving before the end of the year.
Yamelsie Rodriguez, president of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri
'One hundred days post-Roe we stand in defiance to say: we are not backing down,' Yamelsie Rodriguez, president of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri said Monday.
She added: 'we're standing in the gap created by politicians and ensuring all people can access the health care they deserve, no matter where they live.'
Illinois is a safe harbor for women seeking abortions in the majority-red Midwest.
The procedure is legal in Illinois even after the high court's decision to throw out Roe v Wade, and the right to an was enshrined in the state's constitution in 2019.
Planned Parenthood already has a clinic in the southern Illinois town Fairview Heights, positioned along the state line with St Louis, Missouri.
The clinic, which opened in 2019, was inundated with patients following the Supreme Court's June decision.
Planned Parenthood Fairview Heights clinic in Illinois, first opened in 2019
The organization reported that the clinic has seen a 30 per cent increase in abortion patients
