Abortion Care Availabity: Women Traveling Out-Of-State For The Procedure Increases

As states embrace the antiabortion-rights laws and a number of clinic closures in the so-called "abortion desert" between Florida and New Mexico and up into the Midwest. There are an increasing number of reports of women traveling across state lines to avoid long waits for appointments and avoid the legal barriers in their home states for abortion.

More than 200 Texas patients crossed the borders to New Mexico last year, compared with 21 in 2013. The number of Texas patients at one Albuquerque abortion care clinic alone more than tripled, jumping from 19 to 67 last year, said Vicki Saporta, president and chief executive of the National Abortion Federation hotline in MSN News.

States have passed laws imposing mandatory delays; obligating clinics to meet unnecessary surgical center standards. These also mandate physicians to travel around the United States to meet the demand for abortion care privileges. These delays have been forcing women to seek medication, generally available up to 10 weeks, to have surgical abortions by traveling out-of-states and progressively become more expensive.

In Texas, the number of abortion care clinics has plummeted from 41 to 19 in the last three years. In Louisiana there are four; in Arkansas three. Missouri and Mississippi have one each. Resulting the trend of traveling out-of-state for the procedure more than double.

The executive director of the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, Joan Lamunyon Sanford, noted that some women who are unable to afford air travel have to travel several days by bus or by car, missing a day of work or school for the abortion privileges. She said nobody should have to deal with these to get healthcare.

According to research from the Guttmacher Institute, Women's Health Policy Report says 53 percent of women in the Midwest and 49 percent of women living in the Southern counties have no access to abortion care, compared with 38 percent of women all over the United States. Let us know your thought below.