(NEW YORK) — Ghislaine Maxwell has been moved to a low-security federal prison in Florida to serve her 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
Maxwell, who has filed notice that she intends to appeal her conviction and sentence, is currently listed as an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee.
The facility is different than what Maxwell’s attorneys had requested. They asked that she serve her time in Danbury, Connecticut.
Maxwell, 60, was found guilty of conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to recruit, groom and abuse minors.
The outgoing director of the BOP, Michael Carvajal, was subpoenaed to testify this week before a Senate panel and could face questions about Epstein’s suicide while in jail.
Maxwell’s defense attorneys had frequently complained about the conditions of her confinement at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where she was previously held, arguing she was subjected to harsh treatment because of her association with Epstein.
At the facility in Tallahassee, Maxwell will be expected to wake up at 6 a.m., make her bed, dress in khaki pants and khaki shirt and maintain a regular job assignment.
(NEW YORK) — As abortion laws across the South and Midwest block nearly all abortions in over a dozen states, some city politicians are seeking new ways to protect abortion access.
While city leaders can’t directly overturn state legislature, some are seeking city-wide bills to mitigate the effects of state bans.
Austin unites against Texas state law
On Thursday, Austin’s city council voted to enact the GRACE Act, which effectively decriminalizes abortion in the city. One council member, Mackenzie Kelly, was absent from the vote.
City policy will be updated to deprioritize the investigation or enforcement of any charges related to pregnancy and abortion.
While Austin is still under Texas’ abortion law that bans nearly all abortions in the state, the GRACE act aims to minimize criminal accountability for those who seek or provide abortions.
“Criminalizing abortions won’t make them go away. It only puts people of lower economic means and communities of color at risk by making seeking essential health care unsafe,” Council member Vanessa Fuentes told ABC News.
The legislation also blocks the use of city funding or other resources for information sharing, data collection and surveillance related to abortion services and other reproductive health decisions, according to District 4’s office.
The act, however, will not apply when “coercion or force” is used against a pregnant person or in cases of criminal negligence related to a pregnant person’s health, the office added.
Jenna Hanes, communications director for the District 4 office, said that council member Jose Vela believes abortion is just like any health care, and shouldn’t be limited by politics.
“Abortion being punishable by up to 99 years in the state of Texas is ridiculous, it’s a violation of human rights,” Hanes told ABC News.
The city unanimously passed another three measures on Thursday, all aimed to protect access to abortion.
One was a nondiscrimination ordinance, which does not allow a resident to be discriminated against in housing or employment based upon their previous reproductive choices.
Two other measures were introduced by the city’s mayor, Steve Adler, and passed by the council.
One is an awareness campaign regarding birth control options, including male-targeted options such as vasectomies. The second directs the city manager to explore options to assist city employees in traveling for any procedure they cannot obtain within Texas — including abortions.
“In Austin we stand together and fight for what is right. Reproductive rights and choice are fundamental rights,” Adler told ABC News.
New Orleans resistance meets state backlash
Some New Orleans officials have adopted similar measures, and are facing backlash from the state government for doing so, the New Orleans mayor’s office said.
Louisiana’s abortion laws are currently not in action, as a temporary order blocking enforcement was issued June 27 and has since been extended several times, with a state judge expected to hear arguments Tuesday, officials said.
If the laws are cleared by the judge, several New Orleans officials have pledged to resist enforcing the bans.
In June, the New Orleans City Council passed a resolution similar to the GRACE Act that prohibits public funds or resources from being used by local law enforcement to enforce the trigger ban, according to the mayor’s office.
Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams said his office will not prosecute abortion providers, and New Orleans Police Department and the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said they will not arrest nor investigate providers.
In opposition, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry called upon the state treasurer and his fellow members of the Bond Commission, a state agency that determines who can incur debt or levy taxes, to delay any applications and funding for New Orleans and Orleans Parish until officials agree to enforce the ban, according to a statement from Landry.
New Orleans mayor Latoya Cantrell said she will continue to fight to make New Orleans a safe haven for abortion access.
“As a Black woman, I understand the devastating impact these laws will have on our health and safety. We experience a higher maternal mortality rate than any other group and we cannot risk our reproductive health care decisions being forced out of our hands,” Cantrell told ABC News.
St. Louis leaders defy the state of Missouri
A similar circumstance exists in St. Louis, where Mayor Tishaura Jones signed a bill to direct $1 million in federal relief funds to support access to abortions on Thursday, according to the mayor’s press conference.
Hours later, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed suit to block the new law, issuing a statement that the law was “blatantly illegal.”
“I believe that abortion is healthcare and that healthcare is a human right. He does not,” Jones said. “I believe, and a majority of Missourians believe, reproductive health care decisions should stay between St. Louisans, their God, and their doctor. The attorney general does not.”
Earlier this week, the St. Louis County Council voted not to adopt a similar bill to use federal funding towards abortion resources following a nearly three-hour debate on Tuesday.
The effort, sponsored by Council members Lisa Clancy, D-5th District, and Kelli Dunaway, D-2nd District, faced a 4-3 vote at the end of the meeting, blocking it from enactment.
Clancy told ABC News that she sponsored this bill because “removing the ability to access this procedure is a fundamental violation of the freedom of women and other pregnant people to self-determine their health care decisions.”
Clancy said that two abortion clinics in neighboring Illinois are the most accessible for the St. Louis region. But, for those who don’t have transportation, lodging and child care, getting to those clinics remains nearly impossible.
“My bill will help to level the playing field among those who need abortions to actually get them by providing funding for the logistics required to get an abortion across state lines,” Clancy told ABC News.
District 6 Council member Ernie Trakas told ABC News that he does not believe it is legitimate to use such funds for abortion travel, and that passing such a bill would “most definitely result in suit being file by the Missouri Attorney General.”
(NEW YORK) — The sixth teenager in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, will be exonerated on Monday.
While the famous “Central Park 5” juveniles went to trial, a sixth teen, Steven Lopez, pleaded guilty to avoid the rape charge.
On Monday afternoon, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. is moving to vacate Lopez’s guilty plea and dismiss the indictment.
On the night of April 19, 1989, Trisha Meili was jogging in Central Park when she was raped, brutally beaten and left for dead. She survived and testified, but did not remember her assault.
Five teenagers — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise — had high-profile trials after they were taken into custody, hounded in police interrogations and ultimately gave false confessions.
Salaam, Santana and McCray were convicted of rape, assault and robbery. Wise was found guilty of sexual abuse, assault and riot, and Richardson was convicted of attempted murder, rape, sodomy, robbery, assault and riot.
In 2002, convicted rapist Matias Reyes confessed to being Meili’s sole attacker, and Reyes’ DNA was matched to the crime scene. The five men’s convictions were overturned and they later received a settlement from the city.
Lopez’s case is not as well known. Lopez, who was 15 when arrested and interrogated, took a deal with prosecutors to avoid the rape charge and pleaded guilty to robbing a male jogger the same night as the rape, according to The New York Times.
Lopez served over three years and didn’t receive settlement money, the Times reported.
ABC News’ Susan Welsh, Keren Schiffman and Enjoli Francis contributed to this report.
(HOUSTON) — A Houston-area police officer was shot in the face by a suspect armed with two automatic pistols with extended magazines, authorities said.
Crystal Sepulveda was injured early Saturday and hospitalized in stable condition, authorities said.
“She’s a strong officer, she will make it through this,” Missouri City Assistant Police Chief Lance Bothell said at a news conference.
Sepulveda, who has been with the Missouri City Police Department for three years, suffered one gunshot to the face and another to the foot, he said.
The shooting took place early Saturday when Missouri City officers spotted a car that was suspected of being linked to an aggravated robbery on Friday, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner told reporters. Officers pursued the car, Finner said, and the suspect stopped in front of a house. The suspect then headed to the side or back of the house where he shot Sepulveda, Finner said.
The suspect fled on foot, and when he was found in a backyard, he opened fire on officers, Finner said. The suspect was shot and pronounced dead at a hospital, he said.
“We never celebrate the loss of life, but what could you do when a suspect is so violent?” Finner told reporters. “I ask for prayers for everybody involved, but certainly our men and women on the front line.”
Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — In the 30 days since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the abortion landscape in the United States has dramatically changed.
The 5-4 decision was related to a Mississippi law that banned abortions after 15 weeks. Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the majority to uphold the Mississippi law but joined the liberal justices in voting to not overturn Roe.
Because of the ruling, states can essentially establish their own laws. This means depending on where Americans live, people either have unfettered access, limited access or no access at all to abortion.
Many states had so-called trigger laws that immediately banned abortion once Roe was struck down. Others had laws written prior to the court’s decision that they were able to enact after abortion rights were overturned.
A handful of other states have gone the other way and signed executive orders and directives strengthening access to abortion and protecting those who seek or perform the procedure.
Patient care has changed, too. Abortion providers in states where access is still available are seeing more out-of-state patients than ever before, while OBGYNs told ABC News more women are requesting sterilization over concerns their current methods of birth control will fail and they won’t be able to get an abortion.
More states with abortion bans
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, at least 13 states have ended nearly all abortion services.
Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas have completely banned abortion with few restrictions, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee have enforced six-week bans, and Florida has enforced 15-week bans.
This has led to the U.S. being made up of a patchwork of abortion laws.
At least three other states — Kentucky, Louisiana and Utah — have also passed abortion bans, but they have been blocked in court and are awaiting hearings.
Meanwhile, Michigan and West Virginia had pre-Roe bans on the books that were never repealed and went unenforced for years. Judges have issued preliminary injunctions in court against both bans, while Michigan’s governor has vowed to protect rights.
Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in the legal history of reproduction, told ABC News that “this is just the beginning” and she believes more states will pass laws banning abortion in the coming months and years.
She said lawmakers wrote several of these abortion laws under the assumption they would not be legally allowed to actually go into effect. Now that Roe is overturned, some states want to make them even more stringent.
For example, in Indiana, the Republican-led Senate has proposed eliminating its current 22-week ban and replacing it with a total ban on abortion with limited exceptions. Additionally, in Missouri, where a total ban already exists, lawmakers want to go a step further and make it illegal to “aid or abet” out-of-state abortions.
“So, since Roe has been overturned, there’s been literally like a cottage industry of abortion opponents producing new model laws and proposals for how to actually enforce an abortion ban, or eliminate exceptions to abortion bans, or enhance punishments for abortion,” Ziegler said.
Some states strengthen abortion protection
While some states have been restricting the right to an abortion since Roe’s reversal, others have been strengthening it.
The governors of Colorado, Maine and North Carolina signed executive orders certifying the right to obtain or perform an abortion.
“A woman’s right to choose is just that — a woman’s, not a politician’s,” Maine Gov. Janet Mills said in a statement at the time of signing.
In Delaware, Gov. John Carney signed legislation allowing licensed physician assistants, certified nurse practitioners and certified nurse-midwives with training to “terminate pregnancy before viability.”
Governors in all four of the above states as well as Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Washington signed executive orders protecting people who seek or provide abortions from criminal or civil investigations or charges.
In North Carolina and Delaware, neither patients nor providers will be penalized for inquiring about abortions as well as providing or receiving abortion care.
The governors of Colorado, Maine, New Mexico and Rhode Island said they will not cooperate with investigations in other states of people who received or performed abortions in their own states.
Additionally, Govs. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts and Tim Walz of Minnesota said they will not cooperate with extradition attempts for those who obtained or provided abortions in their respective states.
Baker’s order also protects providers from losing their licenses due to out-of-state charges relating to abortion.
In Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a directive forbidding the Washington State Patrol from cooperating with investigations related to abortion in states with restricted access.
Earlier this month, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to take steps to safeguard abortion access including protecting patient privacy, promoting the safety of providers and clinics and strengthening the mandate set by Obamacare that birth control continue to be covered by insurance. Biden has said his power to protect abortion is limited but fellow Democrats and abortions rights advocates have been pressuring the White House to codify abortion rights.
Doctors are seeing more out-of-state patients
Abortion providers in states where the procedure is legal say the makeup of their patients has somewhat changed.
Pro-Choice Washington, a non-profit organization focused on advocacy for reproductive freedom in Washington state, expects a 400% increase in patients seeking care from out of state following Roe’s reversal. One New Mexico clinic said 75% of their patients come from Texas, which has a total abortion ban.
Dr. Lisa Harris, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan, said she has seen more out-of-state patients for abortions than ever before in her almost 30-year career.
Before Roe was overturned, Harris said, typically about three-quarters of her patients seeking abortions were in-state and one-quarter were out-of-state.
“The last day I saw patients, it was 80% out of state and 20% in state,” Harris told ABC News. “It was just like a flip-flop.”
“Most of the patients I took care of last week seeking abortion care came from three different states where they had appointments scheduled on the day the decision was released or shortly after and were unable to get abortion care,” she added.
She continued, “And it took a couple of weeks for them to find and set up care somewhere else, which happened to be Michigan.”
Michigan is one of several states that had an abortion law predating Roe that was never repealed. In Michigan’s case, the 1931 law makes providing an abortion a felony, including in cases of rape and incest. The only exception is if the mother’s life is in danger.
A judge issued a temporary injunction in May blocking the ban as a lawsuit Planned Parenthood filed against the state plays out. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also filed a lawsuit in April to stop the ban and ask the state’s Supreme Court to recognize abortion as a constitutional right.
Last month, Whitmer filed a motion asking for the court to immediately consider her lawsuit. It’s unclear when a hearing will be held.
The lawsuit has been criticized by groups that oppose abortion rights. Barbara Listing, president of Right to Life of Michigan, referred to the lawsuit as “frivolous” and called on the court to dismiss it.
Harris also said this is the first time she has ever had to tell patients who schedule appointments that she can’t guarantee they will be seen if the injunction is lifted.
“When we meet a patient, we’ve had to say, ‘We will schedule you, but there is a chance that when next week rolls around, abortion will no longer be legal in Michigan and we won’t be able to care for you,’ which causes a great deal of stress, as you can imagine, and people try to make contingency plans,” she said.
Harris is also worried about what qualifies as a life-saving abortion under the save the mother’s life exception if the Michigan ban is upheld.
“In Michigan, our ban permits abortions to preserve the life of the patient, but it’s unclear what the means and does that mean they have to be imminently dying?” she said. “What if the risk was later if they continue in their pregnancy? Does it need to be a 100% chance that they would die? What if it’s 50%?”
She said she thinks it will start to be clear about what qualifies as a life-saving abortion “as doctors begin to be prosecuted.”
Some women are turning to sterilization
Dr. Charisse Loder, a clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Michigan Medicine who specializes in sterilization, told ABC News she has seen an increase in the number of patients coming in requesting sterilization procedures since Roe was overturned.
Before the Supreme Court decision, Loder said she saw one to two patients a week to discuss sterilization. In the weeks since, she has seen anywhere from four to six patients a week.
“Many of them scheduled their appointments after the decision and are actually telling me without prompting that they were prompted to make their appointments based on the news,” she said.
Loder said many of her patients were on other types of birth control, including condoms, pills and IUDs, but wanted to switch to a method with a lower failure rate following the reversal of Roe.
“I’ve had patients say things like, ‘I just can’t take any chances now,’ or, ‘I don’t know what the future holds,'” she said.
She added some patients were also fearful that access to birth control would be lost after reading a concurring opinion written solely by Justice Clarence Thomas in which he called for the reconsideration of Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right of married couples to use contraception.
On Thursday, the House passed a bill that would protect access to birth control nationwide. The bill passed 228-195 with eight Republicans joining the Democrats.
“So, patients [asking for sterilization] have said, “I don’t know if in the future I’ll need my partner’s permission to use birth control,'” Loder said. “One patient told me, ‘I can’t trust the government to protect me.'”
(NEW YORK) — Family Dollar shoppers should check their medicine cabinets and bathrooms for any recently recalled products.
The variety dollar store chain issued a voluntary recall of hundreds of products from toothpaste and lip balm to deodorant and lotions due to them being stored incorrectly.
The products were “stored and inadvertently shipped” to some stores from around May 1 through June 10, and were “stored outside of labeled temperature requirements,” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration stated.
Family Dollar said it has not received any consumer complaints or reports of illness related to this recall.
“Family Dollar has notified its affected stores asking them to check their stock immediately and to quarantine and discontinue the sale of any affected product,” the FDA said in the recall. “Customers that may have bought affected product may return such product to the Family Dollar store where they were purchased without receipt. This recall does not apply to Delaware, Alaska, Hawaii as no Family Dollar stores in Delaware received any products subject to this recall and Family Dollar does not have any stores in Alaska or Hawaii.”
Any questions can be directed to Family Dollar Customer Service at 844-636-7687 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET.
The FDA urged customers to contact a health care provider if they experience any problems that may be related to using these products.
“Adverse reactions or quality problems experienced with the use of this product may be reported to the FDA’s MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program either online, by regular mail or by fax,” the agency said.
(NEW YORK) — An eruption of the Sakurajima volcano in Japan has raised emergency alerts of their highest levels and prompted evacuations for residents nearby.
The volcano, located in Japan’s southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima on the western island of Kyushu, erupted at 8:05 p.m. local time on Sunday, according to Japan’s Meteorological Agency.
The emergency alert in the region has been raised to level 5, the highest, and evacuations were ordered for residents living within a 2-mile range of the crater, including parts of Arimura-cho, Furusato-cho and Kagoshima City, where about 600,000 people live.
The volcano is still “very active,” and windows can break due to the vibrations from the continuous explosions and falling debris, including large rocks and ash, according to the agency.
The ash and smaller rocks can also be carried on by winds, NHK, the Japan Broadcast Corporation and a partner of ABC News, reported.
Frequent explosive activity has been occurring at Sakurajima for centuries, according to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. There has been persistent activity at the Minamidake summit cone and crater since 1955, and the Showa crater has also been intermittently active since 2006.
Activity decreased significantly in May 2021 and throughout the rest of the year, when the number of monthly explosions and ash emissions were both much lower compared with the first half of the year, according to the Smithsonian.
A task force has been set up at the prime minister’s office, which has called up a team of officials from various agencies to assess the extent of the emergency, NHK reported.
Additional information on the severity of the eruption was not immediately available.
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — From books to clothing to electronics, back-to-school shopping is around the corner for many families.
According to new survey data from the National Retail Federation, American families are expected to spend over $860 this year on school supplies. But with inflation hitting hard, parents are likely looking for a break wherever they can.
“We feel the squeeze like everybody else,” Lindsay Chamberlin, a mother of three in Florida, told Good Morning America. “Everything seems to be going up, but really the back-to-school deals have been really good.”
Seventeen states are now offering tax-free holidays for school supplies, cutting sales tax ahead of the start of school. In Florida, where many schools begin in August, the sales tax holiday kicks off Monday and runs until Aug. 7.
“This week is my Olympics,” Chamberlin said. “The savings really stack up, definitely with the tax advantage in the stores stacking their sales on top of it. We’ll definitely be finishing up our shopping by Friday.”
Which states are offering tax-free holidays for back-to-school supplies in 2022?
Alabama (already passed; ran from July 15-17)
Arkansas (Aug. 6-7)
Connecticut (Aug. 21-27)
Florida (July 25-Aug. 7)
Iowa (Aug. 5-6)
Maryland (Aug. 14-20)
Massachusetts (Aug. 13-14)
Mississippi (July 29-30)
Missouri (Aug. 5-7)
New Mexico (Aug. 5-7)
Ohio (Aug. 5-6)
Oklahoma (Aug. 5-7; only clothing items are exempt from sales tax)
South Carolina (Aug. 5-7)
Tennessee (July 29-31)
Texas (Aug. 5-7)
Virginia (Aug. 5-7)
West Virginia (Aug. 5-8)
In addition, Illinois is offering a reduced sales tax of 1.25% on school supplies from Aug. 5 to 14.
For other ways to save, check cash-back apps such as Ibotta and Rakuten for deals and for computers and electronics, look for refurbished models, buy from certified sellers, check return policies and comparison shop.
(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Liz Cheney said Sunday that she is working hard to win reelection this year and beat back a Trump-endorsed primary challenger — but if her time investigating the former president for the House Jan. 6 committee leads to her defeat, “there’s no question” it will have been worth it.
“I believe that my work on this committee is the single most important thing I have ever done professionally,” Cheney, R-Wyo., said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It is an unbelievable honor to represent the people of Wyoming in Congress. And I know that all of us who are elected officials take an oath that we swear under God to the Constitution.”
“That oath has to mean something,” she continued. “And that oath means that we cannot embrace and enable a president as dangerous as Donald Trump is.”
Cheney has become perhaps the GOP’s loudest anti-Trump voice and, as vice-chair of the House panel, has become a public face for the hearings this summer detailing a year-long investigation into the events surrounding the Capitol insurrection.
Despite her conservative record — which largely aligns with Trump on the issues — Cheney has been repudiated by many in her party for helping lead the House’s Jan. 6 investigation after she voted along with a handful of other Republicans to impeach Trump last year.
The GOP caucus booted her from House leadership not long after her impeachment vote and her state party censored her.
Last fall, Trump — who denies any wrongdoing in Jan. 6 — backed Harriet Hageman’s primary challenge to Cheney, saying in statement: “Harriet has my Complete and Total endorsement in Replacing the Democrats number one provider of sound bites, Liz Cheney.”
Voting is set for Aug. 16.
“I’m fighting hard. No matter what happens on Aug. 16, I’m going to wake up on Aug. 17 and continue to fight hard to ensure Donald Trump is never anywhere close to the Oval Office ever again,” Cheney said on CNN. But she acknowledged the cost.
“If I have to choose between maintaining a seat in the House of Representatives or protecting the constitutional republic and ensuring the American people know the truth about Donald Trump, I’m going to choose the Constitution and the truth every single day,” she said.
That echoes what she said on ABC’s This Week earlier this month: “The single most important thing is protecting the nation from Donald Trump. And I think that that matters to us as Americans more than anything else, and that’s why my work on the committee is so important.”
“I don’t intend to lose the Republican primary,” she said then.
On CNN, she also talked about the state of the committee’s investigation, which she said continued apace even as the panel’s summer hearings have wrapped. More are expected in the fall.
“We have a number of many interviews scheduled that are coming up. We anticipate talking to additional members of the president’s Cabinet. We anticipate talking to additional members of his campaign,” Cheney said, adding, “We’re very focused as well on the Secret Service and on interviewing additional members of the Secret Service and collecting additional information from them.”
Cheney said potential witnesses were prompted by the testimony of former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who said at a hearing last month, in part, that she was told Trump physically lashed out when his security detail prevented him from going to the Capitol to join his supporters.
The Secret Service has since said they will respond on the record to Hutchinson’s account.
They have also said agency text messages from the days around Jan. 6 were deleted — inadvertently — as part of a technology issue, though the House committee is pressing for answers.
“We will get to the bottom of it,” Cheney said Sunday.
Among the Trump-adjacent figures in talks with the panel is conservative activist Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who repeatedly urged Trump’s then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to attempt to overturn the 2020 election results
“The committee is engaged with her counsel. We certainly hope that she will agree to come in voluntarily. But the committee is fully prepared to contemplate a subpoena if she does not,” Cheney said on CNN.
“I hope it doesn’t get to that,” Cheney said. “I hope she will come in voluntarily.”
Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Well before the Supreme Court ruled in June to overturn Roe v. Wade, 9% of abortions in the U.S. were obtained by people who had to travel out of state, according to data released Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute, a policy organization that supports abortion rights.
That number — nearly 1 in 10 abortions in the U.S. — is up from 6% in 2011, an increase that occurred at the same time as more states passed abortion restrictions, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Now, with the power to decide abortion access returned to the states by the Supreme Court, abortion rights advocates say the number of women forced to travel for abortion care is already growing.
Amanda Carlson, director of The Cobalt Abortion Fund, which provides financial assistance to people traveling for abortion care, said in the days following the Supreme Court’s decision, the fund helped more than 50 people travel to Colorado for abortion care.
In all of 2021, the fund helped 34 people travel, according to Carlson.
“It has skyrocketed our spending,” Carlson told ABC News of the Supreme Court’s decision, adding that the Colorado-based fund spent $20,000 on support for people seeking abortion care in the first 10 days after the ruling. “We’re seeing numbers that we’ve never seen before.”
The right to abortion is protected in Colorado. In April, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill that codified the right to abortion and declared that a “fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent or derivative rights under the laws of the state.”
Earlier this month, Polis signed an executive order that added more protections for abortion providers and individuals who travel to Colorado for abortion care.
The states surrounding Colorado — including Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Utah and Arizona — have mostly strengthened their restrictions on abortion access, in some cases implementing near-total bans, in the weeks since the Supreme Court’s June 24 decision.
In Oklahoma alone, one abortion clinic, Trust Women Clinic in Oklahoma City, was seeing around 300 patients per month before Roe v. Wade was overturned, according to clinic director Kailey Voellinger.
In the neighboring state of Kansas, voters will cast their ballots on Aug. 2 to determine the fate of a state constitutional amendment which, if passed, would reverse the right to an abortion in the state. The Kansas Supreme Court previously ruled in 2019 that the state constitution protected a person’s right to an abortion.
If the amendment is approved, further restrictions on abortion access are expected, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Carlson said that, over the last month, The Cobalt Abortion Fund had helped women from as far as Florida and as close as Texas get abortion care in Colorado. The fund, she said, is spending between $1,000 and $2,000 on average in travel assistance per person.
“People are struggling economically and they’re facing not only the cost of abortion care but also very expensive plane tickets, very expensive gas,” she said. “They need flights purchased for them. They need transportation to and from the airport. They may need a hotel while they’re here.”
With so many out-of-state people seeking abortion care in Colorado, wait times for appointments are now as long as one month at some clinics, according to Carlson.
Adrienne Mansanares, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, told ABC News that her organization purposely placed one of its centers along a Colorado highway knowing that people would travel to the state, given its abortion protections.
“People who were in my position before me 20 years ago were preparing for their worst nightmare, which is this,” said Mansaneres, referring to Roe v. Wade being overturned. “We built a beautiful health center that’s right along the highway [by] Denver International Airport with this idea in mind. If people ever had to fly, patients can come in and out so we can see them in our health center.”
Planned Parenthood’s two other clinics in Colorado are also purposefully located, according to Mansaneres, with one in the northern part of the state accessible to patients from Wyoming, and one in the south more accessible to patients from Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.
“When people don’t want to be forced to have a child, they will go through the means necessary that they have access to,” said Mansares. “So if they have money to hop on a plane, if they have connections and family in another state, they have the information that they need, they’re going to go find it, so we have seen the migration of people coming from these states.”
In New Mexico, a state where abortion access is also protected, demand for abortion care has spiked since the Supreme Court’s decision, according to Joan Lamunyon Sanford, executive director of the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a faith-based advocacy group and abortion fund.
“We’re seeing people contact us from all over the country, not just states that are bordering New Mexico, and we’re seeing people in all stages of pregnancy contact us,” Lamunyon Sanford told ABC News. “People are confused about whether it’s safe for them to travel from other states to New Mexico, and at the same time they’re determined to get the care that they need.”
“We’re doing the best we can to meet all of those needs,” she said, adding that the fund is working to hire more people to meet the demand.
Abortion clinics in New Mexico that were overwhelmed prior to Roe’s reversal — due to an influx of patients from Texas, which for the past year had a near total ban on abortions after six weeks — are now experiencing wait times of several weeks, according to Lamunyon Sanford.
“We know that just from Senate Bill 8 in Texas, that our numbers increased between three and four times,” she said. “And our numbers have increased beyond that in the last four weeks.”
In response to abortion restrictions in Texas post-Roe, Whole Woman’s Health, an Austin-based network of abortion clinics, has announced it is closing its four Texas clinics and reopening in New Mexico, where they hope to open a location near the border with Texas as early as August.
“We are hoping that by setting up in New Mexico, we can help the people in Texas who have been displaced,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health and Whole Woman’s Health Alliance, which also operates abortion clinics in Minnesota, Virginia, Indiana and Maryland. “We know thousands of people have already been forced out of Texas for abortion since last September, and they were able to go to Louisiana and Arkansas and Oklahoma … and now those states have also banned abortion.”
Hagstrom Miller said that 30% of patients at Whole Woman’s Health’s clinic in Minnesota are from Texas, with abortion now banned both there and in neighboring states.
“That’s a far travel and so we are hoping that opening in New Mexico will help sort of mitigate some of the harms that are going to come across Texas,” she said. “But keeping our sites open in Texas is not sustainable.”
Whole Woman’s Health’s four Texas-based clinics stopped providing abortions the day Roe was overturned, even as patients sat inside the facilities awaiting care, according to Hagstrom Miller. Most of the Texas clinics remain open but are in what Hagstrom Miller called a “wind down phase” of packing up and answering phone calls from people still in need of care.
“The volume of telephone calls coming in is large,” said Hagstrom Miller. “Oftentimes people don’t know about all these restrictions or abortion bans until they find themselves facing an unplanned pregnancy, and they call us and our staff are put into a position of telling them all about what has happened over the last couple of weeks.”
“So we’re still answering the phone trying to support people as much as possible,” she continued, adding that clinic workers are helping callers access care in other states and providing funding for travel when possible. “It’s heartbreaking for us and it’s traumatic for people who are trained to provide a service, and trained to provide that service compassionately, to all of a sudden out of the blue have to look someone in the eye and say, ‘I can no longer provide the abortion that you need.'”
If Whole Woman’s Health is able to open a clinic on the New Mexico-Texas border, it will be an approximately seven-hour drive from the organization’s clinic in Austin and upwards of nine hours from its clinic in McAllen, according to Hagstrom Miller.
In New Mexico though, abortion providers say they at least see a place to land. The state’s leader, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, has vowed that “abortion will continue to be legal, safe, and accessible” as long as she is in charge.
In addition to Whole Woman’s Health, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, is also relocating to New Mexico.
The clinic, which was at the center of the Supreme Court case that led to Roe’s reversal, plans to reopen in Las Cruces, New Mexico, after Mississippi’s so-called trigger law went into effect earlier this month, banning nearly all abortions.
“This is today in this country,” Diane Derzis, owner of the clinic, told ABC News this month. “Mississippi is the past, and the future is moving on to where women have an option.”
ABC News’ Alexandra Svokos and Kyla Guilfoil contributed to this report.
