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+--- Thread: The logistics arm of the abortion-rights movement is gearing up (/thread-12200.html)
The logistics arm of the abortion-rights movement is gearing up - C C - May 7, 2022
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/abortion-funds-access-roe/
EXCERPT: . . . Meanwhile, an enormous logistics operation is underway, as many of the most visionary activists across the movement dedicate vast amounts of energy to figuring out how to move people across entire regions of the country that are about to go dark on abortion access. Activist groups across the country are holding trainings and publishing videos, subway ads, and infographics to spread the word about how people can safely self-manage an abortion with pills ordered online.
Practical support organizations and abortion funds have spent months methodically planning for the incomprehensible. Apiary convenes regular meetings for these groups to coordinate with each other about how to get people to clinics.
“The work of practical support—of helping abortions seekers manage the travel costs and logistics, and all the other things that inevitably creep in when you have to travel (food, babysitters, pets)—is the silent backbone of access and is going to be leaned on more heavily than ever before,” Falcon said. “We are here to make sure those organizations have the tools they need to do this work quickly, effectively, and safely.”
[...] Because of existing restrictions, “basically everybody” seeking an abortion in Missouri has had to travel out of state already ... Missouri requires a 72-hour waiting period and a medically unnecessary pelvic exam before a medication abortion, a practice that the sole remaining clinic refused to engage in because they view it as state-sanctioned sexual assault. Instead, clinics in the area have set up a Regional Logistics Center to help facilitate access to care in other states, Schwarz said.
Many of these Missouri patients who are forced to travel wind up reaching Dreith at her Illinois goat farm. She said her work not only involves working out bus and train lines for cities she’s unfamiliar with but also talking with people who are scared to travel, have never flown before, and need to travel alone because many times organizations cannot afford to pay for a support person’s airfare... (MORE - missing details)