TEXAS, USA — Pressure is mounting for health clinics nationwide faced with the challenge of keeping up with the surging demand of women seeking abortions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
“We’re talking half of the states in the country now will no longer have access to abortion care and that’s really going to put significant pressure on the clinic system in those states where it will remain legal,” said Zack Gingrich-Gaylord, communications manager of Trust Women.
The Trust Women Foundation operates abortions clinics in Oklahoma and Kansas.
“Our clinics will remain open and available to our community, providing what care we are legally able to provide in each of our states, but we also want to recognize this is a very tragic decision,” Gingrich-Gaylord said.
Women in Oklahoma have been outlawed from receiving abortions since May after the governor signed into law banning most abortions with exceptions in the case of saving the mother’s life or instances of rape or incest if the crimes were reported to police.
Oklahoma women in need of abortions have been diverted to Trust Women’s clinic in Wichita, Kan, where more than half of patients are from out-of-state.
Pregnant Texas women have also been traveling to the Kansas clinic ever since Senate Bill 8 became law, which bans abortions after six weeks and empowers private citizens to sue providers of abortions, though not the mothers themselves.
Trust Women has been performing more than 200 abortions a month at the Kansas facility over the past several months while wait times for appointments extend beyond two weeks.
The organization is now preparing for the potential flood of clients coming from neighboring states with trigger laws on the books such as Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Missouri.
But the struggle of accommodating everyone’s needs will be an uphill battle for months and potentially years to come as Trust Women’s Kansas clinic is already at capacity.
“People with means will still be able to travel to get abortions but we know that many people are living paycheck to paycheck, many people are not even doing that well. We’re going to see enduring and profound consequences from this decision,” Gingrich-Gaylord said.
The Supreme Court’s decision has prompted non-profits such as the Lilith Fund and Fund Texas Choice to stop providing direct financial assistance to women seeking abortions. But the organizations’ hotlines for guidance on how and where to find safe abortions remain open.
Buckle Bunnies Fund provides mutual aid resources, including doula support to people throughout Texas. The organization’s founder and director Makayla Montoya Frazier expressed during a press conference on Friday, she had an illegal abortion at one time and believes it’s vital for women’s reproductive rights to be upheld.
She said the reversal of Roe v. Wade won’t significantly impact Buckle Bunnies Fund’s mission at least for now.
“I think we might just be a little more strategic about what we say who we say it to but we’re not going to stop doing the work that we do. People still need abortions,” Montoya Frazier said.
Not even the prospect of criminal penalties for helping women obtain abortions is enough to completely deter Buckle Bunnies Fund.
“That’s something that we would gladly fight. As long as someone one person is able to get their abortion when they want their abortion, that’s worth it for us I think,” she said.