With the increasing number of patients in states that ban abortion go to do proceduresPlanned Parenthood says it will soon open the first mobile abortion clinic in the country, in southern Illinois.
Rendering from Planned Parenthood shows the design of a new mobile clinic, which is expected to begin delivering abortion pills in Illinois later this year.
Credit: Planned Parenthood
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Rendering from Planned Parenthood shows the design of a new mobile clinic, which is expected to begin delivering abortion pills in Illinois later this year.
Credit: Planned Parenthood
Yamelsie Rodriguez, President of Planned Parenthood of St. Louis and Southwest Missouri said: “Our goal is to reduce the hundreds of miles that people are traveling to access care … and see them where they are. , said in an interview with NPR.
The mobile clinic will start providing abortion counseling and medication later this year. It will operate within Illinois, where abortions are still legal, but will be able to travel closer to the borders of neighboring states, reducing the distance many patients have to travel for the procedure.
“It gives us a lot of placement flexibility,” says Rodriguez.
Planned Parenthood opened the Fairview Heights Medical Center in Fairview Heights, Illinois, in 2019, predicting a spike in patient numbers from across the region. That increase is fast becoming a reality.
ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images
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ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images
Planned Parenthood opened the Fairview Heights Medical Center in Fairview Heights, Illinois, in 2019, predicting a spike in patient numbers from across the region. That increase is fast becoming a reality.
ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images
Illinois has become a center for people from other parts of the Midwest and South who are unable to have an abortion in their home state due to an overturned U.S. Supreme Court decision this summer Roe v. Wade.
Anticipating that possibility, Planned Parenthood opened a large clinic in 2019 in Fairview Heights, Illinois, just across the state line from St. Louis. Missouri had some of the nation’s strictest abortion laws even before the courts Dobbs sues Jackson Women’s Health Organization this decision, and state officials almost immediately implemented an abortion ban in response to it.
The Fairview Heights clinic is expected to admit about 14,000 patients from across the region each year, an increase “that is happening a lot faster than we anticipated,” Rodriguez said. “We just need more access points.”
The mobile facility – set up inside the RV – will include a small waiting area, lab and two exam rooms. Officials say it will initially offer medical abortions up to 11 weeks gestation. Eventually, it will offer surgical abortions, which will likely begin around next year.
Dr Colleen McNicholas, regional medical director of Planned Parenthood, said: “Patients visiting healthcare facilities at the mobile clinic will follow the same process as patients visiting a Planned facility. Fixed parenthood. They applied mifepristone – the first in a two-drug regimen approved by the Food and Drug Administration – topically. They were asked to advise on another drug, misoprostol, to be taken afterwards.
“The only thing that will change is the fact that they can now only have to drive five hours instead of nine,” she said.
One of the first tasks will be to determine the best routes for the mobile clinic. The organization is looking at the data to determine where patients are coming from and looking at healthcare facilities, churches and other locations as potential stops. Another important point will be the safety and security of patients and staff, McNicholas said.
Officials say they may expand to additional mobile units in the future. If the mobile clinic concept succeeds, it could be part of a larger strategy to find new ways to reach patients who want an abortion after an abortion.Roe. An organization called Just a pill also recently announced that they will be offering medical abortion care at mobile clinic for patients in the western and midwestern United States.
“We are all trying to work together to accommodate the exponential increase in the number of patients moving from the prohibited states to what we call the ‘hidden states,’” said Yamelsie Rodriguez. refuge’ for abortion care.” “It was a moment of all-out.”
Planned Parenthood said mid-June, when Dobbs The decision was issued, and August saw a nearly fourfold increase in the number of patients coming from outside Missouri or Illinois to the Fairview Heights clinic. The organization is also preparing to open a new family planning clinic in Rolla, Mo., in early November. Rodriguez said it is part of a larger effort to expand services to include contraception, STI screening, transgender care, and reproductive health care delivery in rural, underserved areas of the state.
The inversion of Roe has set up likely wars between states with a patchwork of different abortion laws. Earlier this year, a Missouri state legislator Proposal failed allows people to file lawsuits against people who help Missouri residents with out-of-state abortions – which she describes as “abortion tourism”. That proposal failed, but legal experts say it’s unclear how conflicts between state laws will be resolved in the future.
