From New York to California, leaders, doctors or citizens promise to “to beat” so that their democratic states are “shrines” guaranteeing hundreds of thousands of women every year the right to a legal and safe abortion.
Friday, the very conservative Supreme Court buried the right to abortion, reversing its emblematic judgment “Roe v. Wade” of 1973 and returning to the States the possibility, or not, of prohibiting abortions. At least seven states have activated this ban during the day.
In the state of New York, fourth in the country (20 million inhabitants), classified on the left because of the weight of its megalopolis, politicians and health professionals had been preparing for weeks for the burial of the right to interruption. voluntary pregnancy by the Supreme Court of the United States.“Our state will always be a sanctuary for those seeking an abortion”assured the Democratic Governor, Kathy Hochul.
And in this democratic state in the northeast, an influx of patients is now expected from conservative states in the south and center of the country, some of which immediately banned abortion on their soil on Friday.
“We know that the needs will skyrocket”, told AFP Sarah Moeller, health professional from the Brigid Alliance association, which pays for travel, board and lodging and financially supports women of modest means who have to perform an abortion. Her association helps a hundred women every month and Sarah Moeller now estimates that “hundreds of thousands more people will have to travel out of their states for abortion-related health care”.
Alice Mark, a physician and counselor for the National Abortion Federation in Massachusetts, also wonders “What’s going to happen to all these people in the 26 states, [selon le Guttmacher Institute], where abortion will be partially or totally prohibited”. There are to date, according to her, 300,000 abortions per year in all these conservative states such as Louisiana, Missouri or Oklahoma.
As in Massachusetts – even though its governor is a Republican and abortion is expensive there – Alice Mark hopes that “states such as Illinois” will facilitate access to their clinics by recruiting more staff and will open at night and on weekends.
On the other side of America, the governors of three “progressive” states on the West Coast – Gavin Newsom in California, Kate Brown in Oregon and Jay Inslee for the State of Washington – “engaged” in a statement to “defend access to contraceptive health care, including abortion”.
They regretted that “in more than half of the country – or 33.6 million women (10% of US population) – abortion (is) henceforth illegal or inaccessible”. The three states must release $152 million in aid.