'We have nothing here': AL clinic Director on the lack of abortion access in the South

Less than a year after the Dobbs ruling, the American South has largely become an abortion desert – and it’ll become worse when Florida enacts its new six-week ban. The focus has recently turned to the abortion pill mifepristone and ensuring it stays legal and accessible. But, the outcome of the mifepristone ruling may not affect the South as much as people might think. “One thing that I want to make extraordinarily clear about this medication abortion fight is that it does not impact the South,” says Robin Marty, Operations Director for the healthcare clinic West Alabama Women’s Center. “It is going to not have any effect on us whatsoever because we have no abortion…We have nothing here.” As access to abortion care continues to shrink largely in Republican-led states, the spillover effect it creates will impact abortion-friendly states the most. “This is going to be a flood on all of the clinics that will make a domino effect, that will make abortion extraordinarily difficult, even for people who thought that they were safe.”April 15, 2023