Planned Parenthood will begin running mobile abortion clinic in southern Illinois
Planned Parenthood recently made the announcement that it would begin running a mobile abortion clinic in southern Illinois. The facility’s primary focus will be on serving patients who reside in neighboring states that have restricted access to abortion services.
After the Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade, three states that border Illinois—Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee—passed legislation that made it illegal to perform abortions.
According to Planned Parenthood, these laws have caused a surge in the number of women seeking abortions in the neighboring state of Illinois.
Since the decision in Roe v. Wade was reversed, the number of patients seeking abortions at the organization’s facility in Fairview Heights, which is located only 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the border between Illinois and Missouri, has increased by thirty percent. According to Planned Parenthood, appointment wait times have increased significantly, going from four days to two and a half weeks.
According to Planned Parenthood, “putting abortion treatment on the road will help cut travel lengths,” which will also free up room at its physical offices.
“Over the past 100 days, I’ve cared for people from across the country who traveled to southern Illinois for abortion care,” Dr. Colleen McNicholas, Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, said in a statement. “Planned Parenthood is proud to bring creative solutions to an unjust health care system and doing our best to depoliticize decisions that should be left between providers and their patients.”
The chief executive officer of a pro-life organization called Sidewalk Advocates, Stacy Smith, expressed her group’s “very deep disappointment” at the news that Planned Parenthood was “trying to retain its business line by delivering mobile abortions.”
“This expansion takes advantage of pregnant women in crisis in states that now protect unborn children and their mothers from the tragedy of abortion,” Smith told Fox News Digital in a statement.
In the new mobile abortion facility, which will be housed in an RV, there will be two exam rooms, as well as a lab and a waiting area.
At first, it would only give medical abortions up to 11 weeks into a pregnancy, but later, it would also provide abortions via surgical procedures.
