“Planned Parenthood announced plans on Monday to open its first mobile clinic to provide abortion services, launching a program in Illinois to expand its footprint near the state’s borders with Missouri and Kentucky,” according to Axios.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, 17 states have moved to ban or restrict abortion procedures, the outlet noted.
Missouri and Kentucky are two of those states.
"Located 20 miles from the Illinois-Missouri border, Planned Parenthood's Fairview Heights clinic in Illinois has seen the number of abortion patients spike by 30% since the high court delivered its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization," Newsmax stated.
The clinic has also seen a 340% increase in patients traveling from outside Illinois and Missouri.
A Planned Parenthood spokesperson told Axios the clinic usually received patients from Missouri and those traveling from Midwest and Southern states like Kentucky, Tennessee, and Texas.
JUST IN: Planned Parenthood is launching its 1st mobile abortion clinic — with plans to reach patients in red states and cut down on how far they need to travel.https://t.co/A1768t7xDK
— NPR (@NPR) October 3, 2022
Planned Parenthood officials on Monday announced plans for a mobile abortion clinic — a 37-foot RV that will stay in Illinois but travel close to the borders of adjoining states that have banned the procedure since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. https://t.co/Dz6D06Zatj
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 3, 2022
Per Axios:
The mobile clinic will be outfitted in an RV and will serve patients along the Illinois border and provide the full slate of services usually provided by a brick-and-mortar Planned Parenthood, per a press release.
- The mobile clinic will help Planned Parenthood reduce wait times and travel distances for patients as well as free up capacity at the Fairview Heights clinic.
- The mobile clinic will have a waiting room, a lab and two exam rooms, and will provide medicated abortions up to 11 weeks gestation. It has plans to offer procedural abortions in the future.
- The mobile clinic will begin seeing patients at the end of October or early November, the spokesperson told Axios.
- Planned Parenthood has other mobile clinics in the past that have offered family planning services, this is the first to provide abortion services, the spokesperson added.
"One hundred days post-Roe we stand in defiance to say: We are not backing down," Yamelsie Rodriguez, president of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, said in a press release.
"Abortion bans, 'defunding' Planned Parenthood, and attacks on reproductive freedoms writ large are deeply unpopular," Rodriguez continued.
"We're standing in the gap created by politicians and ensuring all people can access the health care they deserve, no matter where they live."
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