A modern abortion clinic will open in southeast Kansas this fall, strengthening the state’s role as a regional center for reproductive health services whose neighbors have severely restricted access since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade fell.
Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains announced Tuesday that it will be opening a modern facility in Pittsburg, Kansas, offering abortion procedures and pills, as well as pregnancy services, contraception and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
After the Roe reversal, Kansas became the first state where voters took a stand on abortion at the ballot box, strongly rejecting a constitutional amendment that could have banned abortion in August 2022.
Since then, the state — which bans abortions after 21 weeks of pregnancy — has become a destination for people from more restrictive neighboring states seeking an abortion.
According to the organization, as of March 2023, 44% of abortion patients at Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas traveled more than 250 miles (402 kilometers), compared to just 1% two years earlier. More than half of abortion patients now come from Texas, and some have even traveled from Florida in recent weeks, said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains Comprehensive Health.
“You cross the state line from Missouri into Kansas and you automatically become a freer person who can actually take care of your medical needs in a different way,” Wales said. “We see it in the faces of patients who literally breathe easier when they come to Kansas.”
The abortion landscape in the United States has been changing since the June 2022 Supreme Court decision that struck down the constitutional right to abortion nationwide.
New bans or restrictions have taken effect in most Republican-led states, including 14 that ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy with some exceptions, and three others that ban it after about six weeks of pregnancy – often before Women are aware of this. I’m pregnant again.
For people from these states who want to terminate their pregnancy, the main options are either to obtain abortion pills through telemedicine or underground networks or to travel abroad for abortion pills or procedures.
In the years before the Supreme Court’s decision, Kansas had about as many in-state residents as out-of-state residents seeking an abortion, according to statistics reported to and released by the state health department. That’s largely because Kansas City, Kansas, is easily accessible from Missouri, which has historically had few abortion service providers.
In 2022, the number of out-of-state residents granted consent orders more than doubled, to 8,475, state data shows.
Pittsburg, Kansas, is more than 100 miles (161 kilometers) south of Kansas City and 150 miles (241 kilometers) east of Wichita. That means the modern clinic location is just hours closer to patients who may be traveling from Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma — and even Louisiana or Texas — where the procedure is restricted.
Pittsburg itself has a shortage of providers for contraception and other sexual health services, Wales said, but it has “the added advantage of being so close to neighboring states.” The Pittsburg facility will eventually offer gender-specific services as well.
Clinics are relocating to meet demand elsewhere outside the state. New Mexico has pledged $10 million for a modern facility in Las Cruces, near the Texas border; a clinic opened last year in western Maryland, a few miles from West Virginia; and two modern clinics opened in the southern Illinois city of Carbondale.
Ingrid Duran, state legislative director for the National Right to Life, said it’s not surprising that modern clinics are springing up to meet out-of-state demand because of the financial resources available to providers.
“And it’s not surprising to know that people who want abortions would leave the state if they weren’t available there,” she said. She said states should also offer resources that will “hopefully persuade women seeking abortions to choose something else.”
Caitlin Myers, an economics professor at Middlebury College who researches abortion policy, said she counted 78 abortion facilities opening in the U.S. between May 1, 2022 and April 1 of this year. This number includes 10 who moved from a different location in the same state, seven who moved across state lines, and 61 modern providers.
The augment in providers near state lines has led to modern efforts by abortion opponents to restrict the practice, dubbed the “abortion trade.”
A Texas man is trying to force his former partner to say who helped her get an abortion out of state, a move toward civil enforcement of Texas’ abortion ban.
Lawmakers in at least two states have targeted people who allow minors to have access to abortions without parental consent. Tennessee lawmakers passed a bill last month that would make it illegal to assist minors in abortions without parental consent; Republican Gov. Bill Lee has not yet taken any action on the matter. Idaho passed a similar law last year, although a federal judge has blocked enforcement while its constitutionality is questioned.
Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly is a sturdy supporter of abortion rights, but the GOP-controlled Legislature has veto-proof majorities and sturdy anti-abortion contingents.
This year, lawmakers passed bills — and later overrode Kelly’s vetoes — for laws that require abortion providers to ask patients why they are terminating their pregnancies and report the answers to the state, making it a special crime , forcing someone to have an abortion.
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Fingerhut reported from Oakland, New Jersey, and Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
