Soon after a series of state laws left a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia, Missouri, unable to provide abortions in 2018, it shipped some of its equipment to states where abortion remained accessible. Recovery chairs, surgical equipment, and lighting from the Missouri clinic — all expensive and perfectly good — could still be useful to other health centers run by the same affiliate, Planned Parenthood Great Plains, in its three other states. Much of it went to Oklahoma, where the organization was expanding, CEO Emily Wales said.
When Oklahoma banned abortion a few years later, it was time for that equipment to move again. Some likely ended up in Kansas, Wales said, where her group has opened two new clinics within just over two years because abortion access there is protected in the state constitution — and demand is soaring. Her Kansas clinics regularly see patients from Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and even Louisiana, as Kansas is now the nearest place to get a legal abortion for many people in the southern U.
S. Like the shuffling of equipment, America's abortion patients are traveling around the nation to navigate the patchwork of laws created by the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, which left policies on abortion to the states.
Since that ruling, 14 states have enacted bans with few exceptions, while other states have limited access. But states that do not have an abortion ban in place have seen an 11% increase in c.