Over 66,000 People Couldn't Get An Abortion In Their Home State After Dobbs

[riversedge]

Over 66,000 People Couldn’t Get An Abortion In Their Home State After Dobbs

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/post-dobbs-abortion-access-66000/

By Maggie Koerth and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux

Graphics by Paroma Soni Apr. 11, 2023, at 8:00 AM


A few weeks ago, Jessica Marchbank got a call from a woman whose abortion had just been canceled. The woman had driven more than two hours from Louisville, Kentucky, to Indianapolis, leaving three children at home. “She’s crying, saying, ‘How am I going to make this work?’” said Marchbank, who is the state programs officer at All-Options Pregnancy Resource Center in Bloomington, Indiana. “She barely had the gas to get home that day.”

Marchbank has talked to hundreds of people who want an abortion each month since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Her organization helps provide abortion funding for women who live in or are traveling to Indiana. Before the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, All-Options would typically help about 70 patients per month; after Dobbs, it jumped to closer to 70 per week. And as the call volume increased, Marchbank’s job has gotten exponentially harder. Clinics across Indiana have weeks-long waits and patients there are legally required to make two trips to the clinic. Some choose to drive to Illinois, where they only have to visit the clinic once.

In the end, the woman from Louisville went home and scheduled a separate, 10-hour round trip journey to Chicago. “A lot of people are just driving up to Chicago,” Marchbank said. “Somehow, it ends up being easier.”

Tens of thousands of Americans navigated similar complications as they sought abortions in the six months following the Dobbs decision. Around 66,510 people were unable to receive a legal abortion in their home state between July and December of 2022, according to a data set shared exclusively with FiveThirtyEight by #WeCount, a national research project led by the Society of Family Planning, a nonprofit that supports research on abortion and contraception. 1 That number includes more than 43,830 people who were unable to receive an abortion because their home state had banned the procedure, and an additional 22,680 whose home states restricted or reduced access to abortion — a list that includes Arizona, South Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, North Dakota and Indiana.................................................................................

[riversedge]

1. Virtual appointments to get abortion pills increased post-Dobbs Estimated number of medication abo

'Virtual appointments to get abortion pills increased post-Dobbs

Estimated number of medication abortions from virtual-only clinics nationwide from April through December 2022, by selected states

[Ninga]

2. I'm not sorry to say this, what percentage of these distressed women vote? Faithfully?

There is one reason and one reason only this country is under siege. Voter apathy.
Yes, I’m blaming the victims. Brutal perhaps. But the truth.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. Fix your heart.

[Ninga]

4. My heart is out pounding the streets circulating a petition for Ohio to have

the Women’s Reproductive Rights initiative on the ballot. My heart has spent the last 4 election cycles registering voters, and work8ng election protection at the polls.

Please tell me voter apathy has nothing to do with the awful state of affairs in this country. Tell me why and I will beg your forgiveness and pray my heart will heal.

We did not get to the state in this country because of the elected officials. We are here because in Ohio, Cuyahoga County voted 26% last November. The Democratic strongholds in Ohio were miserable no-shows. Just ask Tim Ryan.

Many nurses, teachers, and otherwise educated women do not vote. Period.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

6. The factor that influences voter turnout the most is access, not apathy. And people who face some of

the largest barriers to voting are those who also face the largest barriers when trying to access abortion. When people struggle with everything in their lives, voting is simply one more struggle. They are more likely to feel disconnected from any policy progress that might be made, and if a policy creates more barriers, it's simply more of the same. When people are given better access to vote, they tend to do so, even if they are otherwise disconnected.

The Democratic strongholds in Ohio were miserable no-shows. Just ask Tim Ryan.

Well, that can happen when you run away from your party in a Senate race.

[Hortensis]

5. Agree. Victimizers are responsible for the harm they do, and that

includes harm from the relative indifference to the problems of others common to most nonvoters. They don't need to "take" responsibility. It's theirs.

And their becoming victims of their own apathy, resentment, laziness, disengagement, whatever, doesn't change that, just adds to the harm they've done.