When a new abortion ban goes into effect in Florida this week, it will rob people across the south of one of the last few options they had. Floridians and those in neighboring states will instead have to travel to North Carolina or even farther to get an abortion. Abortion funds were already straining to meet the need of patients. Now, they must raise more money for people traveling longer distances, later in pregnancy when abortions can be more complicated and expensive. This is the post-Dobbs reality: For all the optimism surrounding state ballot measures in November, abortions are increasingly out of reach or financially ruinous for large numbers of people.
“This is the biggest change to the abortion access landscape since Roe was overturned,” Stephanie Loraine Piñeiro, executive director of Florida Access Network, told me. “Regardless of what happens in the election cycle, people need abortion access every single day.” As a result of the ban, said Piñeiro, there are clinics that will close and will simply not be able to re-open even if the ban is lifted. “This is being done to further decimate the abortion access landscape in a way that you can’t come back from.”
Whatever happens in November, people in Florida right now are going to need support for the mounting costs and other obstacles involved in going out-of-state for a surgical abortion, or for navigating the legal risks in obtaining abortion medication. Last year, more than 84,000 people terminated a pregnancy in Florida, according to the state’s health care administration. Abortion funds that help people traveling for surgical........