Abortion travel is predicted to rise after Florida's ban. Providers say they can't handle the surge

In April, after news that Florida's six-week abortion ban was due to take effect May 1 of this year, the DC Abortion Fund had 13 patients travel from the Sunshine State. So far this year, before news broke about the six-week ban, they saw just 21 patients from Florida. Jade Hurley, the communications manager at the DC Fund, told Salon the increase was notable and foreshadowed what’s to come as Florida’s near-total abortion ban goes into effect this week.

“This hit to abortion access is really going to impact us and I really can't promise that we're going to be able to help everyone, which is really tough,” Hurley told Salon. “A lot of times when people are traveling for their abortion procedures, it's not necessarily that they're like hopping on a plane; it’s that they're driving across state lines, from state to state, often to find a place with an appointment within their timeline.”

According to Florida’s new law, it is a felony to perform or actively participate in an abortion six weeks after gestation. The ban has exceptions for rape, incest and human trafficking up to 15 weeks and to save a woman’s life or prevent “substantial and irreversible” impairment.

There are a few reasons why a six-week window isn't enough time. Since weeks of gestation is counted from when a woman last had a menstrual cycle, many women don’t have a confirmed viable pregnancy by six weeks. Between 2018 and 2023 an estimated 41 percent of the about 459,000 abortions in Florida occurred at or before six weeks of pregnancy.

There are many reasons why people have to wait until after six weeks to terminate a pregnancy. People frequently have to make an appointment and have the resources to make that appointment, not to mention challenges such as requesting time off from work and finding childcare. There are also many complications that can threaten a person’s health in pregnancy that can’t be detected until later in pregnancy.

Not only is the law severely restricting access to abortion care to Floridians needing to access abortion care, but also people in the south who live in states that have similarly strict laws. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Florida banned abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Yet the vast majority of its neighboring states had more severe restrictions. According to the Society of Family Planning's #WeCount report, Florida became one of the top three states to see a rise in out-of-state abortions post-Dobbs. In other words, it became an unlikely surge state. Now, clinics in states that have less restrictive abortion bans are worried that their clinics might “buckle” under the pressure caused by Florida, or they won’t be able to support the influx.

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Calla Hales, executive director at A Preferred Women's Health Center, told Salon in a call that their Charlottesville facility in North Carolina has seen an increase in out-of-state patients since Dobbs in 2022, despite the state enacting a twelve-week abortion ban in July 2023 and a 72-hour waiting period.

“North Carolina has already had so many obstacles to navigate in the past two years, and we've been forced to be in this position of absorbing patients from other states as these restrictions just keep piling up,” Hales told Salon. “Up until today, we've had a partner in that with Florida; Florida was accepting honestly an astronomical amount of patients from other states.”

But now that partnership in Florida is gone. Hales told Salon it’s “daunting” and “terrifying” to think about what’s going to happen now that Florida can’t take out-of-state patients.

“The current system as it is is not sustainable,” she said. “How long can you force yourself to go-go-go at this type of capacity before it ultimately buckles?”

Pre-Dobbs, Hales said, they’d see 20 to 30 percent of patients from out of state. Primarily, they were coming from South Carolina. After Dobbs, nearly 75 to 80 percent of patients they see from out of state — from Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. It has been a constant “pain” and “suffering,” Hales said.

“Not only am I seeing patients be forced to navigate these crazy, just simply absurd logistical nightmares to get their abortion care,” Hales said. “But patients have never been more desperate than I've ever seen in my entire career.”

In April, a data analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP) found that people driving the longest distances to get an abortion are more likely to come from congressional districts with Republican representatives or have lower incomes.

“For women who have to drive a full working day, round-trip, to get to a clinic, they're more likely to [have] low income,” Sara Estep, associate director of the Women's Initiative at CAP, told salon. “And therefore, they're also losing a whole day's wages since most low-income women do not have paid sick leave.”

Florida’s six-week abortion ban will only exacerbate this trend, Estep said. On top of having to lose wages at work, they’re potentially paying for gas, hotels and dealing with long lines to get abortion care. For those who are mothers already, they are struggling to arrange childcare.

“It’s not feasible for a lot of these women to just get in their car and drive to these places,” Estep said. “What will end up happening is that there is going to be an increase in unwanted pregnancies and it is so deeply concerning that this is going to be happening to women who are in positions that make them more financially vulnerable and are just in a difficult position already.”

As Hales said, there is another side to the strain the six-week abortion ban in Florida will cause as well. As clinics and providers in surge and blue states struggle to provide care, some of them are also struggling themselves with burn-out and compassion fatigue.

“It's devastating for staff and patients,” Hales said, mentioning that before our phone call, the staff at the Charlotte clinic had a grief workshop because a staff member died by suicide. “We're sitting here trying to navigate this space and realizing that we can't stop because people need us, while navigating our own grief, wondering how much of the constant stress and compassion fatigue of this job contribute to this?”

Hales said once headlines fade about Florida’s six-week abortion ban, she hopes people still remember that their world doesn’t stop when the “headline changes.”

“You're watching people be incredibly and rightfully upset about things going on in a different country, and I'm not undermining the importance of the topic, but who the hell took over a college campus when Roe fell?” Hales said. “Is it because those same Ivy League students can afford to get an abortion anywhere?”

Hurley from the DC fund said they will always do their best to help out of state patients, but also emphasized they are operating along a thin margin.

“We're already routinely going over budget every single week in order to help more folks and we put first the fact that everyone deserves accessible abortion care in their community,” Hurley said. “When someone comes to us and says they need help, we're going to find a way to help them, but that also means we need the funding to do it and we already don't have it.”