Tulsa abortion clinic plans a move to Illinois amid bans in Oklahoma

A Tulsa abortion clinic is relocating to Illinois in the wake of stringent abortion bans in Oklahoma and the fall of Roe v. Wade.

The Tulsa Women’s Clinic, which has a sister clinic in San Antonio, will be moving to Carbondale, in southern Illinois. The San Antonio clinic is moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The two clinics will join other abortion providers — including some from Texas, Tennessee and Mississippi — in relocating from states hostile to abortion access to states where the procedure is protected.

Oklahoma rescinded the licenses of the four abortion clinics in the state on June 24, the day the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which was the 1973 opinion that enshrined a person’s right to get an abortion.

But abortions had already ceased in Oklahoma for about a month before that.

In May, Oklahoma had enacted what was the strictest abortion law in the country at the time, banning all abortions after the point of fertilization, except in cases of rape or incest in which the crime was reported to law enforcement, or in the event of a medical emergency.

“Once we knew that Roe was officially overturned and Oklahoma was going to do its best to ensure that abortion bans, total bans, stayed in effect, we had to get serious about a plan for the clinic and how could we continue to safely and affordably be accessible to Oklahomans,” said Andrea Gallegos, executive administrator of the Tulsa Women’s Clinic.

Carbondale, Illinois, stood out as a place where a move would be doable, she said. Abortion access is protected in Illinois, and it borders several states that have banned the procedure.

It’s about a seven-and-a-half hour drive from Tulsa.

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“At some point, we just knew that things were not going to change anytime soon and Oklahoma women are having to travel anyway,” she said.

Gallegos said the clinic hopes to be up and running in its new location in September, and they’re raising money to help fund the move.

Some staff will relocate, and the clinic will also hire locally, she said.

The move will be bittersweet, she said. On one hand, it’s refreshing for the clinics to be moving to states where abortion clinics and their staff aren’t subject to the same strict rules and regulations Oklahoma and Texas have, she said.

But it’s been emotional to begin packing up the offices, knowing Oklahomans in need of abortions have lost many of their options in the last few months, Gallegos said.

“It's incredibly sad and devastating to close the two clinics that we've been operating at for so long. We've been serving these areas for so long and we've provided good quality care for so long. And we still could,” if not for the laws preventing their operation, she said.

Reproductive rights groups and abortion providers, including Dr. Alan Braid, who owns the Tulsa and San Antonio clinics, have challenged several Oklahoma abortion bans in court.

The most recent lawsuit challenges a 1910 state law that makes it a crime to perform an abortion, arguing that the Oklahoma Constitution protects the right to end a pregnancy.

The cases are still pending before the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

Planned Parenthood clinics in Oklahoma have had to stop offering abortions, but their doors are open and will stay open, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Great Plains said Thursday.

Clinics in Oklahoma City, Edmond and Tulsa are still open to provide other services, including primary health care, cancer screenings, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, HIV-related care, birth control and gender-affirming care.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Tulsa Women's Clinic will close, move to Illinois amid Oklahoma bans