Before Roe sued Wade, Merle Hoffman ran an Abortion Clinic in NYC

Four years earlier, in 1972, about 100,000 women across the country went to New York City to have an abortion – about half have traveled more than 500 miles, and some have come from as far away as Arizona, Idaho and Nevada. Most have gone to large facilities with multiple operating rooms. Initially Mrs. Hoffman’s clinic was small; the cost of the procedure there was $77, and it was covered by HIP, the health insurer, which Ms. Hoffman said was thinking of opening her own facility but didn’t want to upset members. board members who have ties to the clergy or major labor unions. .

As abortion spread after Roe, the need for women to get on a plane or drive for six hours to see a doctor could be greatly reduced. Only recently has demand returned. Over the past few years, more and more people have been coming to Ms. Hoffman’s facility from outside New York – from Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Ohio – as abortion laws become increasingly outlawed, as the facilities close, and The doctor who performed the procedure was removed and not always easily replaced.

One Roe reversal will end abortion in 13 states immediately or very quickly; Another 14 may restrict the procedure to 22 weeks or earlier, although many of them may also ban it altogether. This will cause more women to travel to have an abortion, Ms. Hoffman predicts, creating challenges for the infrastructure to help them.

Over the past few decades, a network — the “overground railway,” as she puts it — has grown to serve women who have to leave home to end their pregnancy. For example, options that work closely with Haven Alliance, was founded in 2001 by a counselor at an abortion clinic in New York. One day, a counselor asked a patient out of town where she was staying, and the patient said she slept in her car because she couldn’t afford a hotel.

The union, founded as a non-profit, calls for volunteers to pick up women from their procedures, bring them into living rooms and on sofas, and provide food and comfort. Since then, the fund has been created to help women cover flight attendant costs. “Having a very active support network, but it gets stressful,” Ms. Hoffman said. “Everybody – women, men of conscience – will have to look in the mirror and say ‘What can I do?’ and then do something. ”

In 1989, Ms. Hoffman recounted, she stood outside St Patrick’s Cathedral, waving coat hangers with hundreds of other protesters in defiance. Cardinal John O’Connor’s Support in Operation Rescue, an active anti-abortion group. The same afternoon we talked, Seven foot high fences have been installed around the Supreme Court anticipating protests.

“I am reliving my youth,” Ms. Hoffman said. “My feeling is that we have minimized the strength of the opposition.”