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Abortion rights activists in the US launching a mobile abortion clinic

Abortion rights activists in the US launching a mobile abortion clinic

Abortion rights activists in the US launching a mobile abortion clinic

Abortion rights activists in the US launching a mobile abortion clinic

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  • Yamelsie Rodriguez is the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St Louis region.
  • She says there is an increasingly urgent need for abortion services in a post-Roe v Wade US.
  • Abortion remains legal in Illinois, but patients are travelling long distances to access care.
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Yamelsie Rodriguez calls it a “act of defiance.” More than that, the plan to open a mobile abortion clinic in the US state of Illinois aims to address what Rodriguez, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St Louis region and southwest Missouri, described as an increasing need for abortion services.

After the United States Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in June, Illinois saw a dramatic increase in the number of patients travelling from states where abortion was banned or severely restricted, she told Al Jazeera.

Abortion is still legal in Illinois, and people have been travelling long distances from Oklahoma, Tennessee, and other states to get care since Roe v Wade was overturned, she said. Wait times have already increased from four days to more than two weeks at a Planned Parenthood clinic in southern Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from St Louis.

“We made it clear to our patients that we were not going to abandon them, and that we were not going to back down,” Rodriguez told Al Jazeera, emphasising the organization’s commitment to providing abortion services “no matter where they are.”

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Earlier this week, the United States celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 abortion ruling, which sparked widespread protests and calls for action to protect reproductive rights.

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With the repeal of Roe v Wade, Republican-led states immediately acted to restrict abortion, capping a decades-long campaign by conservatives and religious groups opposed to abortion. Several states outright banned it, while others imposed severe restrictions.

Planned Parenthood’s mobile abortion clinic, the organization’s first in the United States, is part of a counter-movement by rights advocates to establish abortion sanctuary networks and lower barriers to accessing the procedure in a post-Roe America.

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