As Florida six-week ban forces women to leave state for abortions, volunteers add support

LAKE WORTH BEACH — When planning a trip for a medical procedure that can’t be had locally, the little things are essential.

The little things include snacks for the trip, stomach-soothing herbal tea, pills for pain and nausea, thermal patches for cramping, sanitary supplies and, for someone traveling alone to an unfamiliar city for a procedure shrouded in stigma and clouded by blame, a note of encouragement: “You’ve got this.”

On a recent sunny Saturday, 20 volunteers got together at Compass Community Center to pack 60 bags of those little things for women leaving town to get abortions they can no longer get in Florida.

The event was sponsored by the Emergency Medical Assistance fund — EMA — one of the oldest funds providing financial assistance for abortions in the nation. The fund, which was founded in 1972, originally focused most of its efforts and resources on helping women to secure abortions in Palm Beach County, predominately women living locally. In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion, the nonprofit's work has increasingly supported women forced to travel to Florida from their own states — Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama — where abortions already were prohibited.

On May 1, the start of Florida’s ban on abortions after six weeks following a woman’s last menstrual period put the procedure out of reach for all women who don’t discover their pregnancies or the need to terminate a pregnancy within a few weeks of conception.

Since then, EMA has focused on helping women here get to a state where a clinic can still provide the care they need. For Florida women seeking abortions now, that can mean a trip to New York, Washington D.C., Maryland or Illinois. Many who need financial help to make the journey are taking their first flight. On arrival they may be using a ride share app for the first time and spending a first solitary night in a hotel.

“The bags mean one less thing for people to think about,” EMA Executive Director Jessica Hatem said.

Volunteers span generations of struggle for abortion access

The supply bags assembled by the volunteers will go to the Presidential Women’s Center, a clinic that has provided abortions in West Palm Beach for more than four decades.

When, two years ago, Florida’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks put the procedure out of reach for women who did not discover their pregnancies, fetal abnormalities or conditions threatening their own health within that time frame, the center helped find appointments at clinics in states without restrictions. The West Palm Beach clinic still provides abortions to those who discover their pregnancies and choose to terminate them in time, as well as follow-up care for those who had to travel for the procedure itself.

The volunteers worked briskly, filling the bags in about 10 minutes, with time to turn their attention to writing thank you notes to the hundreds of people who have donated money and supplies this year, as this state’s six-week abortion ban loomed.

The volunteers who gathered Saturday included people who remember the last time abortion was out of reach in Florida and across most of the United States. The group also included people who never lived in a country without a constitutional right to terminate pregnancies but who have faced anti-abortion rights protesters and fought laws standing between women and care for decades.

“Thirty-five years ago with my baby in a stroller, I was escorting women into the Presidential Women’s Center,” said Jill Morris, a volunteer from Boca Raton.

“I don’t know why it’s so emotional to be here at this time,” said Mona Reis, who founded the center 1974. She smiled as she remembered the late Harriette Glasner, the Palm Beach activist who launched the EMA fund the following year by selling a diamond bracelet.

She would be proud of what the volunteers were doing today, Reis said, “but she would be crying over the hardship so many are being subjected to.”

Abortion rights advocates hopeful Amendment 4 will bring change

Two volunteers had come straight from their jobs at the center, where they work as counselors and had spent the morning helping patients. The counselors worry that pressure added by the law to act quickly, and practical concerns added by the need to travel are overtaking time patients need to think and be comfortable with the choice — whether to have an abortion or not.

“You are not alone!” a volunteer wrote on a pink slip of paper that would go into one of the bags. “Take care of yourself.”

“Are we signing the cards?” another volunteer asked.

“Yes, to make it personal,” another answered.

“This might be scary, but you are so strong,” another wrote. “Keep going.”

Hatem believes Amendment 4, the Florida ballot initiative to limit government interference against abortions, will pass in November. The amendment would override any law that bars abortion before a fetus could survive outside the womb and any law restricting abortion that a healthcare professional finds necessary to protect a woman’s health.

In the meantime, Hatem said, the volunteer involvement and donor generosity have continued to grow in response to need.

“I’m here because I can’t think of a more important cause to support,” said Sandy Cohen of West Palm Beach.

“She said what I was going to say,” her husband, Lenny Berger, added.Antigone Barton is a reporter with The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at avbarton@gannett.com. Help support our work: Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Abortion rights advocates pack supplies for women traveling for care