Abortion clinics north of Texas are seeing double the number of patients than before state abortion

Abortion clinics north of Texas are seeing double the number of patients than before state abortion ban

Those who want to end a pregnancy are doing their best to travel beyond state borders in the aftermath of a strict anti-abortion law. Some are succeeding. Many are not.

Shefali Luthra
Health Reporter
Published September 17, 2021, 12:54 p.m. ET

With abortion effectively banned in Texas, patients are flooding reproductive health clinics in neighboring states and overwhelming the region’s fragile abortion infrastructure, according to data shared with The 19th.

In Oklahoma City, Trust Women, which provides abortions and other forms of reproductive care, saw 80 abortion patients the week of September 6 — about double what the clinic would normally be seeing in this time, said the clinic communications director, Zachary Gingrich-Gaylord. Close to two-thirds of those patients were from Texas.

Trust Women’s other clinic, in Wichita, Kansas, saw 70 abortion patients that same week, with half from Texas. Larger shares of Oklahomans are also traveling to the Kansas clinic, Gingrich-Gaylord said, because the surge in Texan patients means they are no longer able to book an abortion appointment in their home state.

“We wouldn’t have to do anything more than turn our lights on, and the phone would be ringing off the hook,” he said.

The Oklahoma City clinic is already booked solid through the end of September, he added, and the volume of patient calls has increased tenfold. Patients are calling from Houston and Dallas to make appointments.

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