Dear John,

I am honored to travel from my home state to Kansas many weekends to provide abortion care. But this past weekend was different from any other.

Read the essay I co-authored with my colleague in Ms. Magazine about the reality on the ground in Kansas. The consequences of states using the pandemic as cover to ban essential abortion care are real, and they’re already being felt.

Most of the patients we cared for were from Texas and Oklahoma. They traveled hours by plane or car because abortion was no longer available in their home states, causing their appointments to be canceled. Many faced agonizing delays that no longer made them eligible for medication abortion.

These barriers are in addition to the obstacles many patients already face, such as lack of insurance coverage, cost of travel, stigma, finding childcare, and many others.

John, I want to share this with you because I’m worried about all of the patients who can’t afford to travel hours in order to get the timely abortion care they need.

By supporting Physicians and advocates like me, we can continue fighting back against all attempts to restrict access.

We will keep sharing reports from the frontlines of reproductive health care and demand our lawmakers follow the recommendations of public health experts.

This is the work I took an oath to do and I am proud to do it alongside you.

Sincerely,

Abbey Hardy-Fairbanks, MD
Fellow