Planned Parenthood Mobile Clinic to Provide Abortion Services Near Red-State Borders
With a growing number of patients in states that now prohibit abortion traveling for the procedure, Planned Parenthood says it will soon open its first mobile abortion clinic in the country, in southern Illinois. The mobile clinic will begin offering consultations and dispensing abortion pills later this year. It will operate within Illinois, where abortion remains legal, but will be able to travel closer to neighboring states' borders, reducing the distance many patients travel for the procedure.
"Our goal is to reduce the hundreds of miles that people are having to travel now in order to access care...and meet them where they are," said Yamelsie Rodriguez, President of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri. "We just need more access points."
Facility Features and Medical Services
The mobile facility – set up inside of an RV – will include a small waiting area, laboratory, and two exam rooms. It initially will provide medication abortion up to 11 weeks gestation, officials said. It eventually will offer surgical abortions, likely beginning sometime next year. Patients seeing healthcare providers at the mobile clinic will follow the same protocol as those visiting a permanent Planned Parenthood facility. They take mifepristone - the first in a two-drug protocol approved by the Food and Drug Administration - on-site. They're offered counseling about the other drug, misoprostol, which is taken later.
Mobile Clinic Specifications
| Feature | Description |
| Facility Type | Mobile facility set up inside of an RV |
| Rooms | Small waiting area, laboratory, and two exam rooms |
| Initial Services | Medication abortion up to 11 weeks gestation |
| Future Services | Surgical abortions (likely beginning next year) |
| Operating Region | Within Illinois, near neighboring states' borders |
Rising Demand and Regional Context
Illinois has become a hub for people from other parts of the Midwest and South who've become unable to get abortions in their home states as a result of this summer's U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Anticipating that possibility, Planned Parenthood opened a large clinic in 2019 in Fairview Heights, Illinois, just across the state line from St. Louis. The Fairview Heights clinic is projected to receive about 14,000 patients traveling from across the region each year, an increase that "is materializing much, much faster than we anticipated," Rodriguez said.
Planned Parenthood says between June, when the Dobbs decision was issued, and August, it saw nearly a four-fold increase in patients coming from outside Missouri or Illinois to its Fairview Heights clinic. "We are all trying to work together to meet the exponential increase in the number of patients that are traveling from banned states to what we're calling 'haven states' for abortion care," Yamelsie Rodriguez said. "It's an all-hands-on-deck moment."
Safety and Strategic Planning
One of the first tasks will be to determine the best routes for the mobile clinic. The organization is reviewing data to determine where patients are coming from and looking at healthcare facilities, churches, and other locations as potential stopping-off points. Another important consideration will be safety and security for patients and staff, according to Dr. Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood in the region. Officials say they may expand to additional mobile units in the future if the mobile clinic concept succeeds.