Clinics in states with highest rate of abortions prepare for a flood of new patients

Abortion providers in liberal states are expecting a deluge of patients from states where the procedure will now be illegal. Now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade as a part of its decision with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 26 states either already have an abortion ban in place or are likely to pass one. That leaves 24 states with access to legal abortion in most cases, and they are sure to get a lot of visitors seeking reproductive health care.

“Our health centers in those states as well as independent providers have been preparing for this outcome,” Lauren Kokum, the director of affiliate communications at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told Yahoo News.

“Planned Parenthood health centers have been preparing, as well as those independent providers in access-point states — so states where abortion is likely to remain secure and protected. And those are states such as California, Illinois, New York, Colorado, Washington state, Oregon, etc.” Kokum added.

The 10 states with the highest abortion rates that are most likely to be safe from restrictive laws include seven in which abortion will remain broadly legal for the time being: New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Nevada, Michigan, Illinois and New York, according to Center for Disease Control and Prevention data. The other three are Georgia, Florida and North Carolina, which have more restrictive abortion laws.

In 2019, the latest year for which the CDC provided the numbers for abortion, a total of 629,898 procedures were reported from 47 states and the District of Columbia. That was a total rate of 11.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years old. However, the data isn’t fully complete and lacks the statistics for California, New Hampshire and Maryland.

Among the areas reporting data, the abortion rate decreased by 21% from 2010 to 2019, but there was an uptick of nearly 2% in 2019 compared with 2017.

Kokum said that Planned Parenthood is helping to expand capacity in “access-point” states, such as those on the West Coast.

Planned Parenthood is "training more providers to be able to provide abortion, extending health center hours to prepare to meet an increased patient need from patients who are traveling from out of state from those border states in order to access care — as well as increasing our patient navigation efforts,” Kokum said.

Some major corporations acted quickly after the decision, including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Disney, Amazon and Apple, announcing they will help employees financially who might need to travel to another state to receive a legal abortion.

But some medical professionals worry that patients will have long waits for care in states that may now be overburdened with patients from out of state.

Dr. Alhambra Frarey, an obstetrician, gynecologist and abortion provider in Philadelphia, said this decision by the Supreme Court is a “seismic shift” in the health care system, with “scary possible downstream effects,” because of the increased number of appointments needed and the health issues it could cause.

“I'm outraged that this has all come to a head,” Frarey told Yahoo News. “I think abortion providers around the country have been preparing for this. So I think that, you know, expanding access in states where abortion remains legal has been a work in progress, and it's ongoing. ... In the immediate, I think what we're facing is probably an onslaught of patients coming to Pennsylvania for their abortion care.

“And while, as I mentioned, there have been preparations ongoing for the last several months to ensure that we can care for as many people as possible, unfortunately, with more people coming to Pennsylvania that may make it harder for Pennsylvanians to access the care they need.”

In her state of Pennsylvania, abortion is legal but not without restrictions. Abortion is banned at 24 weeks or later; patients must wait at least 24 hours after receiving counseling; state Medicaid can’t cover abortion except in limited cases; and parental consent or notice is required for a minor to get an abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Adding to the complexity of preparing a state like Pennsylvania or Michigan for the arrival of more women seeking abortions is the fact that both are among the handful of states with Republican legislators and Democratic governors. In both, as well as in Wisconsin, Republicans may ban abortion at the state level if they win control of the governor’s office this fall.

“Abortion remains legal in Pennsylvania. But it is not protected, as it is in other states. So if the governor should change and no longer be a pro-choice governor, then certainly there is a good chance that abortion would be extremely restricted or even outlawed in Pennsylvania,” Frarey said.

In 2022 alone, states have passed 43 restrictive abortion laws, bringing that to a total of more than 1,000 since Roe was enacted in 1973, according to Guttmacher.

In California, where abortion remains legal, Dr. Tania Basu Serna, associate clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California, San Francisco, worries about the uptick of new patients and a resulting drop in the number of appointments available.

“I feel very grateful to be practicing in a haven state. So California is actually a state which is expanding access to abortion care, and we are working hard as far as passing legislation to protect abortion access and support abortion providers, increased training of clinicians in our state,” she told Yahoo News.

“We're anticipating that, as the trigger bans pass, that patients will be migrating further distances to receive essential health care. So we're anticipating that there will be a large influx into mostly Southern California.”

Black and Latina women are disproportionately likely to choose to have an abortion and, because of the correlation between income and race, more likely to struggle with the cost of going out of state to obtain one. There are only 30 areas that submitted racial and ethnic data to the CDC for 2019, and that sample size shows that Black women accounted for 38% of abortions, while white women accounted for 33% of abortions and Hispanic women accounted for 21%.

In all, women between the ages of 20 and 29 years accounted for nearly 57% of abortions in 2019.

“It will affect people of color, LGBTQ population, immigrant populations the most,” Serna said.

“Those are the populations that these restrictions will continue to harm. And it will continue to marginalize those even within our community here in California, as we'll be accommodating, providing care to those who are — who have the resources and are able to travel to receive care in our state.”