Since a leaked draft decision made clear that the fall of Roe v. Wade was more of a when than an if, clinics operating in states with trigger laws and pre-Roe abortion bans have existed in a state of terrible suspense
Photo: Gabriela Bhaskar/The New York Times By mid-June, all the abortion appointments at CHOICES, one of two clinics offering abortions in Memphis, Tennessee, were booked for the rest of the month. That in itself isn’t unusual, but for the first time in the clinic’s nearly 50-year history, there were no more appointments forthcoming. In anticipation of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Dobbs v.
. Few administrators were caught off guard — the team at CHOICES has been planning for this since Amy Coney Barrett’s rushed confirmation hearing just before the 2020 election — but now, the legal status of abortion in these states could change on a dime. Many clinics, already strained by decades of declining access, are trying to squeeze in more appointments in a day. Colt Wasserman, a doctor with Planned Parenthood Arizona and a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, has been seeing as many as 40 patients a day for a mix of abortions and counseling sessions — an increase of more than a third. “We’re definitely making a concerted effort to see all walk-ins,” Wasserman says.
Clinics like Planned Parenthood Wisconsin have announced they’re planning to suspend abortion care in advance of the decision, so as not to have to cancel appointments . Others will work down to the wire, which has its own complications. Joey Banks, a doctor at the independent Blue Mountain Clinic in Montana, spent the last year and a half traveling to Oklahoma to provide abortions at the Tulsa Women’s Clinic.
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