A small town in Kansas is home to a new abortion clinic that will serve neighboring states

PITTSBURG, Kansas (AP) — Rev. Anthony Navaratnam stood before his congregation and asked them to pray for the women from surrounding states who are moving to the new abortion Clinic in the city, which opened in August.

“God is giving us the opportunity to work as missionaries in Pittsburg, Kansas,” he told those present at the Flag Church, which was hosting a training session on protesting outside the clinic.

The debate about reproductive rights has landed in this 20,000-person university town in the southeast of one of the few states in the region that still allows abortion. It is located near Missouri, Oklahoma And Arkansas and not too far from Texas.

It was unlikely that a place of this size, especially in a historically red state, would have an abortion clinic The Roe v. Wade ruling was overturned in 2022. Since then Kansas is now one of the five states where people are most likely to travel to get an abortion if they can’t do so at home, says Caitlin Myers, an economics professor at Middlebury College who researches abortion policy.

After Roe, abortions in Kansas increased by 152 percent, according to a recent analysis from the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. By Myers’ count, six of the clinics in Kansas, Illinois, New MexicoNorth Carolina and Virginia that opened or relocated to Roe are in communities with fewer than 25,000 residents. Two more are in communities with fewer than 50,000 residents.

“Kansas is really the only one in this region that can serve many people in the surrounding states,” said Kensey Wright, a member of the board of the Roe Fund in Oklahoma, which supports abortion clinics in Kansas through grants.

“Without abortion clinics in this state, we would have no hope,” Wright said.

Providing abortions to people from other states

The Planned Parenthood clinic in Pittsburgh is housed in a former urology office and is located across the street from a Catholic health system medical clinic. Behind the clinic are houses.

Clinic director Logan Rink said her mother worked in that building as a nurse — a connection that is “small-town in nature.” She loves this town and said her neighbors agree the clinic is necessary. But she was cautious in her optimism, saying, “The reception we’re going to get from the community will be positive in some ways, but probably not always.”

Experts say smaller clinics are less overwhelming for women from rural areas like the Pittsburg area. However, there is no anonymity in these smaller communities, as religious and family ties often run deep. Pittsburg was founded in 1876 and was settled largely by immigrants from predominantly Catholic countries who worked in the surrounding coal mines. It has a typical main street and a state university with about 7,400 students.

“In a small town, you don’t just know this person. Your family knows them. You’ve known them for 40 years,” said Dr. Emily Walters, a supporter of the Pittsburg clinic who works as an anesthesiologist at a hospital in neighboring Missouri. “Their stories will be intertwined.”

She asked herself out loud, “How can I see you at a demonstration and then see you in the supermarket the next day and still be polite and civil to each other?”

Walters is also chairman of the Crawford County Democratic Party in an area that is increasingly Republican and has no Democratic representatives – a change from 20 years ago, when there were six. The county has also become more religious over the same period; it now has twice as many white evangelical Protestants as the national average and slightly more Catholics, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.

Just five weeks after Roe was overturned in 2022, Kansas voters had to decide whether to remove the right to abortion from the state constitution, which could have led to an outright ban. Despite Republican and religious leanings, 55% of voters in Crawford County were among the 59% of voters statewide Who rejected the proposal?.

It is in line with a According to a 2024 Associated Press-NORC poll, 6 out of 10 Americans believe their state should allow a woman to have a legal abortion if she doesn’t want to get pregnant for some reason. But rural counties around Pittsburgh decided otherwise at the ballot box.

“I remember people stealing yard signs and putting others up in other people’s yards,” said Anastin Journot, an 18-year-old from Independence, Kansas, who is studying elementary education at Pittsburg State. She said she was troubled when Roe was overturned and remembers thinking, “What if I’m in a situation where I need an abortion and that’s not an option?”

Abortion is generally legal in Kansas up to 22 weeks of pregnancy. The clinic’s southern location puts it closer to states that have banned abortions than sending patients to Kansas’ larger cities, where hours have been extended and appointments are still scarce.

About 60 to 65 percent of women who call Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas to make an appointment for an abortion are turned away because there isn’t enough capacity, said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains. Already, Wales said, most women seeking abortions in Kansas come from outside the state — primarily from Texas, about five hours south. That’s followed by Missouri, a few minutes’ drive east, and Oklahoma, less than an hour away. She said some come from as far away as Louisiana and even Florida, where the procedure is now banned after six weeks.

“Clinics strategically located near the state border can really help reduce crowding,” says Ushma Upadhyay, a health scientist at the University of California, San Francisco who studies abortion.

Most areas within 100 miles of the new clinic have a government-level medically underserved environment for primary health care, with the number of obstetricians and gynecologists per 100,000 female residents less than half the U.S. average.

For now, however, the Pittsburg clinic’s focus is abortion. Wales said Planned Parenthood plans to gradually add more services over the next two to three months, and a future goal for the clinic is to offer gender-affirming care. Neighbouring countries have also restricted this.

“Pittsburg will help many states in the South and help people get health care,” Wales said.

However, these new arrivals would only take place once staff had become accustomed to the patients and the presence of protesters and opposition, she added.

Demonstrators are ready

The donations to the Vie Medical Clinic, the Crisis Pregnancy Centersaid executive director Megan Newman. Such centers are usually religiously oriented and encourage their clients to continue their pregnancy.

Opponents of the Planned Parenthood clinic are also collecting brochures about Vie to distribute to people seeking abortions. “When we heard that Planned Parenthood was coming, the feeling was felt in the city,” Newman said.

Jeanne Napier, a 68-year-old attendee at the local Baptist church, vowed while shopping at the local mall that she would “be there every day with signs.”

Her daughter, Terri Napier, said in a phone interview that she believes her parents are so opposed to the clinic in part because they saw her fight back about 20 years ago. She was in an abusive relationship with a man who has since died. She became pregnant. The family was afraid of putting a child in that situation.

She had an abortion and started using drugs. “I had trouble forgiving myself,” said the 43-year-old, who is now clean.

Jeanne Napier said she felt she had promoted abortion. “And I hate that,” she said, “because I wish I could take that sin upon myself, so it’s really personal. I actively participated in ending a life, and we have no right to do that.”

Brianna Barnes, a 19-year-old journalism student at Pittsburg State University from Wichita, protested and prayed outside a clinic in her hometown.

“When someone looked us in the eye, we would just smile at them and show them our love and care, because nobody responds well to yelling, screaming and violence, no matter which side it’s coming from,” she said shortly after arriving on campus for the fall semester. Most students AP spoke with expressed support for the clinic.

Her mother, Crystal Barnes, 42, turned to her daughter: “As a Catholic and a conservative, you are the outsider, especially on issues like abortion. The atmosphere is so heated.”

On the Friday before the clinic opened, workers were installing a wooden facade outside. The air was filled with the smell of freshly cut wood. Walters, the local anesthesiologist, had stopped by to see the progress.

Walters’ support has a personal background. When she was 20 and in the same week of pregnancy, she was admitted to the emergency room with bleeding. She said she was sent home to have a miscarriage rather than having her labor induced or the fetus removed.

The experience – “horrific and not considered standard treatment in modern practice,” she said – left her with deep compassion for women in difficult situations.

Just before the 2022 vote, an ad sponsored by 400 Kansas doctors who support abortion rights appeared in some of the state’s largest newspapers, including The Kansas City Star. Walters’ name was first. During that time, her home address appeared online, a frightening prospect in a state where abortion doctor Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed by a man in his Wichita church in 2009. an anti-abortion activist.

“This is a vital health care issue for women,” she said. “It’s going to be very stressful for Pittsburgh. And that part hurts my heart.”

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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas.

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