“Patients immediately were calling, wondering, ‘What does this mean? Can I still come to my appointment tomorrow? Is abortion still legal?’ ” said Dr. Colleen McNicholas, Planned Parenthood’s chief medical officer for the region, which includes the clinic in Fairview Heights and one just across the Mississippi River in St. Louis.
“There’s lots of confusion around what does this mean today and what does it mean in the coming days and weeks.”
“Illinois is going to be ground zero,” said David S. Cohen, a professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law in Philadelphia. “Illinois is just closer to more people who are going to be in states where abortion is going to be banned.”
An island in ‘abortion access desert’
The Fairview Heights clinic — and a partner facility in nearby Granite City, Illinois — expect the number of abortion patients in southern Illinois to double to about 14,000 per year if Roe falls.
In the parking lot of the Fairview Heights clinic there are usually…
