A year after fall of Roe, 25M women live in states with abortion bans or tighter restrictions
26 June 2023
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — A full year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, at the same time, abortions are soaring in Kansas.
Kansas Department of Health and Environment data from 2022 shows Kansas saw its largest increase in abortions in 21 years. The biggest increase is right in Sedgwick County.
The majority of these patients come from out of state, such as Texas or Oklahoma, where abortion is restricted.
“No one is easily able to be seen at this time,” said Trust Women Co-Executive Director Rebecca Tong.
More than 12,000 abortions were reported in 2022, and a little over 1,000 in Sedgwick County.
Tong said the last two years, more and more patients travel for care from out of state.
“It has not lightened up, it hasn’t gotten any easier. People really are desperate to reach anywhere they can be seen,” said Tong.
For women who choose to keep their pregnancy, services like A Better Choice are also seeing an increase.
“It’s been very important for us to be a place of support of help of that village to help with any obstacles that may be in her way,” said A Better Choice Outreach Coordinator, Molly May.
A Better Choice said they connect around 100 women each month to any resource they may need, from their services, such as pregnancy tests or sonograms, to housing and financial support.
Both Trust Women and A Better Choice added more staff to keep up with demand.
“We’ve expanded our staff. We have a full-time social worker,” said May.
“We have tripled in terms of the size of frontline staff, in terms of physicians, in terms of the number of patients that we are trying to be able to serve,” said Tong.
Both are working to maximize their services to help patients.
Trust Women said if states continue to ban or restrict abortion, they expect more people to travel to access abortion in Kansas, bringing a possible increase in years to come.