Many Florida women can’t get abortions past 6 weeks. Where else can they go?

RALEIGH, N.C. — When Florida imposed its six-week abortion ban last week, clinics in several other Southern and Mid-Atlantic states sprang into action, knowing women would look to them for services that are no longer available where they live.

Healthcare providers in North Carolina, three states to the north, are rushing to expand availability and shorten wait times.

“We are already seeing appointments,” said Katherine Farris, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. “We have appointments on the books with patients who couldn’t get in, in the last days of April in Florida.”

Their response is part of a growing trend in the United States: Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and prompted more than two dozen states to pass laws banning or severely restricting abortion, states with looser restrictions have taken steps to protect women welcome those who want or severely restrict abortion. have to terminate their pregnancy.

Since the court overturned Roe in June 2022, some Democratic-controlled states have made it easier for out-of-state women to obtain abortions. Several states have passed laws that protect state health care workers from investigations for offering abortions to women from ban states. Such measures include allowing providers to prescribe abortion pills, the most common abortion method, via telehealth.

Officials in California, New Mexico, Oregon and other states have used taxpayer money to expand access to abortion.

Florida recorded more than 84,000 abortions in 2023, a slight increase from 2022. As of April 1, the state reported about 14,700 abortions this year, potentially causing a significant number of women to consider leaving the state.

“Patients will travel if they are desperate for an abortion,” said Mara Buchbinder, a professor of community medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We know that.”

At one point, Florida was a go-to state for women from other southeastern states with restrictions, including neighboring states Georgia and South Carolina, both of which ban abortions around six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant .

About 7,700 abortions were performed in Florida last year for out-of-state patients, according to state data.

But the state has steadily restricted access. In anticipation of Roe being overturned, the Legislature passed a 15-week ban in April 2022, which went into effect despite a lawsuit. In 2023, it passed a six-week abortion ban that would only take effect if the previous ban held up in court. The state Supreme Court upheld the ban last month and the new law quickly went into effect.

A November referendum asking voters to codify abortion rights in the Florida Constitution could overturn the ban. But until then, Florida abortion advocacy groups will still have to organize many out-of-state trips.

For women who are more than six weeks pregnant, South Florida is now the furthest from a legal provider of any densely populated area in the US. Then the average cost per abortion is expected to rise from $600 or $700 to as much as $1,800 or more, said Daniela Martins, a board member and caseworker team leader at the Women’s Emergency Network, a nonprofit that helps people in the region pay for abortions and other reproductive health care.

Martins said her group expects to help women move to Virginia and even places further north, such as Maryland and Washington, DC. She said she is determined not to turn away clients in need, although raising enough money to keep that promise can be a challenge.

“We’ve seen a lot of messages of support,” she said. “It’s not close to what we think we need.”

Another group, The Brigid Alliance, which travels across the country providing support to women seeking an abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, is preparing for more needs in the coming months.

Serra Sippel, interim director of the group, said the alliance is adding six new logistics coordinators, including four who speak Spanish, and is working with a clinic in Puerto Rico, an option especially for Spanish-speaking people.

One of the largest influxes of patients is expected in North Carolina, where even before Florida’s ban, 32% of abortions at the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics were for out-of-state patients, Farris said.

But while it may be the most convenient place for Florida women given its geographic proximity, North Carolina is not without its hurdles. The 2023 state law allows abortions up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, but requires two in-person visits to a health care provider 72 hours apart.

Those extra steps can turn a one-day procedure into a weeklong affair, says Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler, engagement director for the Carolina Abortion Fund, a nonprofit in North Carolina and South Carolina that operates a hotline to help callers with abortion care.

Providers in North Carolina also fear that the arrival of new patients will lengthen the wait time for an abortion, currently five to 20 days. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, which serves North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, is trying to prevent this by rolling out seven additional days of abortion services and adjusting provider schedules at its North Carolina clinics to extend availability expand, Farris said.

“We are all willing to do the work,” she said. “Operationally, it’s incredibly challenging, and I think it’s important to remember that this is a chaotic system.”

Farris, who performs abortions in North Carolina, must turn away patients who are ineligible under state law because they are more than 12 weeks pregnant. She initially refers them to Virginia, which allows abortions up to 24 weeks. If appointments are not available, women can travel to Maryland, Washington or further north.

The Carolina Abortion Fund has six staff members and a volunteer network, but working there can often feel like working two full-time jobs, even before Florida’s ban, Orlovsky-Schnitzler said.

Volunteers have sometimes stayed up until midnight to help someone coordinate an emergency abortion, and there have been months when the organization has received as many as 1,000 calls, she said. After Roe was overturned, calls increased 400%.

“That’s not an exaggeration,” she said.

According to the data provided, the center received 650 calls in April alone.

The organization often runs out of money, but Orlovsky-Schnitzler said that doesn’t stop employees from answering every call to get people the help they’re looking for.

Staff at A Preferred Women’s Health Center of North Carolina, with clinics in Charlotte and Raleigh, receive about 4,000 calls a week, most of them from women in the Southern states, says executive director Calla Hales.

Since Roe was overturned, about 70% of the clinics’ roughly 13,000 abortions per year have been on out-of-state patients, she said.

The center also operates two clinics in Georgia, which are under a six-week ban in the state. The clinics’ activities there could provide a preview of what’s to come in Florida, Hales said.

“As soon as they pee on a pregnancy stick, they run in,” she said.

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Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.