Crystal Grabowski gave herself only a few minutes to grieve on the morning of June 24 — phones were ringing off the hook at Planned Parenthood’s Pittsburgh clinic soon after news broke that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion.

“It felt like a bomb had gone off. … The reality had finally hit us,” said Grabowski, a health care assistant at the clinic. “We had to keep working, we had to keep seeing patients, and the phones were just ringing off the hook. It was a lot.”

Western Pennsylvania’s two freestanding abortion clinics quickly became key for patients as restrictive laws went into effect in places such as Ohio and West Virginia, forcing people to travel hundreds of miles across state lines for abortion care. The ruling gave states the right to decide whether the procedure should be legal.

The next-closest freestanding clinic in the state is in Harrisburg.

Planned Parenthood and Alle­gheny Reproductive Health Center in East Liberty are now seeing patients from Ohio, where a six-week abortion ban went into effect the day Roe was overturned, and West Virginia, where the state’s only abortion clinic in Charleston stopped performing the procedure based on a law that makes it a felony.

“As soon as that happened, starting Friday night and then Saturday, we saw a 10-time increase in phone calls,” said Sheila Ramgopal, CEO of Allegheny Reproductive Health Center, noting there are 15 clinics in central and eastern Pennsylvania. “We are seeing triple the number of patients. It is overwhelmingly wild.”

That surge isn’t expected to slow anytime soon. According to Ramgopal, last year the clinic saw about 3,500 people while the region as a whole typically sees 8,000 people per year and the region could now see a jump to 21,000 patients.

That’s compared with 2017, when about 8% of U.S. patients left their state of residence for abortion care, a June study found. The number of people seeking care elsewhere varied by state, with 74% leaving Wyoming, 57% leaving South Carolina and 56% leaving Missouri. Thirteen states had less than 4% of patients leaving for abortion care.

“We clearly know this is going to have a devastating impact on families and people,” Ramgopal said. “This is like a constitutional rights violation, right? The fact that people can’t actually have bodily autonomy and their right to health. … It’s unbelievable where we’re at.”

Plan in place

Ramgopal noted that they have been planning for the eventual fall of Roe v. Wade for two years. In that time, additional clinical rooms were added to the facility. Officials doubled the number of staff, although there are now plans to triple that number. Procedures also could be completed seven days a week, an increase from three.

“It’s really scary in terms of the impact for people coming from other places, but also the impact for people who live in our community,” Ramgopal said.

At Planned Parenthood, officials are actively hiring staff and looking for volunteers to accommodate the influx of patients, spokeswoman Sara Dixon said.

So far, the majority of additional patients at the clinic have come from Ohio, Grabowski said.

“It was just a tidal wave. … Just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of patients that were ready to be seen, and all of a sudden they couldn’t be seen, and they were coming to us,” Grabowski said. “They were all scared, and they were all just hoping and praying that we would pick up and schedule them. And then we did, and they were just so relieved.”

Ohio patients also can travel to Indiana, but the state Legislature is expected to meet July 25 to discuss possible restrictions. Nearby Kentucky had a trigger law that banned nearly all abortions; however, the law was blocked by a judge, temporarily allowing abortions to continue.

Grabowski noted the number of patients coming from West Virginia has remained the same. Those patients also can travel to Virginia and Maryland, where abortion is protected.

“It’s cruel,” Grabowski said of the situation. “I hope this is not the new normal. I think it might be, but it really can’t be. I kind of refuse to say this is the new normal, because every ounce of my being fights against that. This has to stop, it can’t go on.”

Uncertain times

Several Republican-led states are looking to further limit access to abortion by blocking patients from crossing state lines to seek abortion care.

The Thomas More Society, a conservative legal organization, is drafting model legislation that would allow private citizens to sue anybody helping a resident of a state that has banned abortion from terminating a pregnancy outside of the state, The Washington post reported. It will use language from a Texas abortion ban, which follows a similar model.

“They can sue anybody,” Ramgopal said. “They can sue for transporting clients, sue providers, staff. … It’s scary, and it’s also just this huge unknown because we don’t know what it’s going to look like and we don’t know how enforceable things are going to be across state lines.”

The Justice Department has warned states that it would fight those laws, saying they violate the right to interstate commerce.

Several states, including California, have taken steps to protect abortion providers and patients from civil suits. In Pittsburgh, city Councilman Bobby Wilson sponsored three abortion-related bills, one of which would attempt to shield abortion providers in Pittsburgh from out-of-state investigations or prosecution from providing abortions legally in Pennsylvania.

While the future of abortion care remains uncertain, several organizations are banding together to help cover the cost of abortion while also paying for transportation and housing for those who need to travel. That includes the Western Pennsylvania Fund for Choice, a nonprofit organization that is part of the Allegheny Reproductive Health Center.

According to Ramgopal, the organization has seen a surge in donations since a draft opinion was leaked detailing the court’s stance on abortion access.

Ramgopal also pointed to the website ineedana.com, where people can find abortion clinics near them.

“What’s so scary is … we know that if you can’t access abortion, your health is at risk, your family’s at risk,” Ramgopal said. “People and families don’t thrive if they don’t have access to bodily autonomy and being able to make decisions for their own bodies and for building their own families in whatever shape or form that’s going to be.

“The public health impact of this is going to be unbelievable.”

This story was updated to correct the number of people who visited the Allegheny Reproductive Health Center last year.

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