Planned Parenthood announced Monday it would soon launch a mobile abortion clinic in southern Illinois.
The clinic, within a recreational vehicle, will house a waiting area for patients, a laboratory, and two exam rooms.
“We are all trying to work together to meet the exponential increase in the number of patients that are traveling from banned states to what we’re calling ‘haven states’ for abortion care,” Yamelsie Rodriguez, president of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, told NPR.
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“Our goal is to reduce the hundreds of miles that people are having to travel now in order to access care … and meet them where they are,” she continued.
“The only thing that will change is the fact that now they might only have to drive five hours instead of nine hours,” added the chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood in the region, Dr. Colleen McNicholas. According to her, patients are still given the first abortion-inducing pill, mifepristone, on-site — just like they would be at a permanent facility. Further, patients are offered counseling about the second pill, misoprostol.
The mobile nature of the clinic will allow it to travel closer to the borders of other states where obtaining the procedure is more difficult or impossible.
“It gives us a lot of flexibility about where to be,” Rodriguez explained.
The facility will begin offering consultations and dispensing pills this year to induce abortions for women who are up to 11 weeks pregnant. Officials said that it would likely begin offering surgical abortions next year.
Abortion is legal in Illinois up until viability and even after in cases in which “the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the patient.”
Planned Parenthood of Illinois provides in-clinic surgical abortions up until 21 weeks and six days gestation, per its website.
The organization says vacuum aspiration is used as the primary method of in-clinic abortion up to 16 weeks. Upwards of 16 weeks, a dilation and evacuation procedure is used.
McNicholas said the organization is looking at places for the mobile clinic to stop, including churches.
If the strategy is successful, it will look to expand its fleet of mobile clinics.
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Planned Parenthood has faced hurdles following the overturn of Roe v. Wade this summer, which returned the issue of abortion to the states. Some states have become abortion safe havens, while others have all but outlawed the procedure.
