This is part of a series updating our readers on some of our top stories from the past year.
While states across the country have moved to ban abortion over the past six months, elected officials, abortion providers and advocates in Washington have done the opposite, working to strengthening existing defenses for reproductive health care and the state’s longstanding status as a destination for abortion seekers. As 2023 approaches, they’re reflecting on a year when abortion access entered the news cycle with new urgency, influencing policy, elections and even fundraising.
Here’s what 2022 looked like on the ground.
As the new year began, abortion providers were already coping with an influx of overseas patients. Long a destination for abortion seekers from Idaho, Washington clinics began accepting patients traveling from Texas in late September 2021, less than a month after that state implemented a six-week abortion ban. It was in this environment of increased need Roe v. Wade would be overturned in June, prompting even more patients to seek care across state lines.
Planned Parenthood was preparing for what was coming next, said Paul Dillon, vice president of public affairs for the organization’s Greater Washington and North Idaho chapter.
“Creating this infrastructure played a big role in us being able to meet patients where they are,” Dillon said.
The organization had hired a patient navigator whose first day coincided with the Supreme Court decision. For people traveling for abortion care, the patient navigator distributes money from a hospitality fund, covering expenses such as lodging, gas and childcare. Still, Dillon said, with the legal uncertainties presented by abortion bans across the country, the past year has been challenging for staff and doctors at Planned Parenthood.
Following Dobbs The decision, the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, which pays for abortions and related expenses through a volunteer-run hotline, did not a large increase in requests for volunteering — more than could be accommodated in one year — and increased financial support.
“We saw a lot of significant donations, a lot of month-to-month donations, which is what really supports the work,” said Riley Keane, a practice support manager.
For the first time in the group’s history, this included municipal funding from King County and the Oregon Reproductive Health Equity Fund. However, Keane said, the past year has been “very up and down”.
“I think it will be really interesting to see if these governing bodies continue to write these funds into their budgets,” said Keane, who worried that abortion rights could “slip away from people’s active awareness” even why the need for care continues to grow as bans and other restrictions go into effect across the country.
Forward deer made reproductive rights and justice a 2022 national focus, Washington advocates, legislators and providers were already taking steps to expand access to reproductive health care at the state level.
In February, state lawmakers voted to officially recognize advanced practice doctors as abortion providers and protect Washingtonians from prosecution for their pregnancy outcomes.
In Aprill, a bill that defines birth doulas as a profession was signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee, the first step in the process of establishing Medicaid reimbursement for doula support. HSB 1881 was co-sponsored by the queer, trans, black, indigenous and people of color Doulas for All coalition. The legislation seeks to address large health disparities in perinatal outcomes by expanding access to doulas for pregnant women on Medicaid. That work is in progress, said EN West, co-director of Surge Reproductive Justice, the health advocacy organization that facilitated the coalition, which is beginning a rulemaking process set to continue in 2023.
That same month, Cedar River Clinics, which operates facilities throughout the Puget Sound region, reopened its full-service abortion clinic in Yakima. The facility provides essential services east of the Cascades, where providers routinely serve not only Washingtonians, but also patients crossing the border from nearby Idaho.
A month later, Dobbs a draft opinion came out.
Washington’s elected officials moved quickly to affirm the state’s support for reproductive rights. Inslee pushed the idea of doing so with a constitutional amendment. (Abortion rights are already part of Washington’s legal code, but a the constitutional amendment would be repealed less.) On May 16, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson sent a letter to state medical licensing boards urging them to ignore previous criminal prosecutions for out-of-state abortion providers targeted by hostile abortion laws.
On June 24, the Supreme Court was officially dismissed Roe v. Wade. By August, Idaho would ban most abortions.
Immediately after Dobbs The ruling, Inslee barred the Washington State Patrol from cooperation with abortion investigations and prosecutions abroad. With California Governor Gavin Newsom and Oregon Governor Kate Brown, Inslee was established a multi-state compact to protect patients from prosecution for seeking abortion care up and down the West Coast.
“Washington State remains steadfast in our commitment to protect the ability and right of every patient who comes to our state in need of abortion care, and we will fight like hell to restore that right to patients everywhere country,” Inslee said at a news conference announcing the compact.
Whether this is possible in practice will likely depend on what happens during the legislative session that begins in January. IN a press conference in Bellingham in October, the governor said he would seek legislation outlining his previously discussed constitutional amendment. At the same event, Democratic state lawmakers announced a slate of abortion-related policy proposals for the upcoming session. The legislative package includes legal protections for out-of-state patients who receive abortion care in Washington; protecting the privacy of patient health information; and greater oversight of preserve reproductive health services when health care entities merge — a practice that has already limited access to reproductive health care at religiously affiliated institutions across the state.
At the press conference in Bellingham, state Rep. Drew Hansen, D-Bainbridge Island, introduced the bill that protects out-of-state patients from prosecution.
“If other states are going to be creative and aggressive in passing anti-choice laws, we’re going to be creative and aggressive in fighting back,” he said.
In December that fight was located in Spokane, where Planned Parenthood was awarded $110,000 in damages after a judge found that the anti-abortion group Planned Parenthood violated state law during protests outside the organization’s Spokane Health Center. The cost of Planned Parenthood’s legal fees, which the Church will also be required to pay, are still being determined.
As 2023 approaches and efforts to preserve access to reproductive health care grow, Planned Parenthood’s Dillon said he found reason to be hopeful in elected officials’ support for abortion rights, as well as state ballot initiative results. like Kansas and Montana that rejected abortion. limitations.
“We’re taking it forward to 2023 and doing everything we can to build a better world for our patients, where access doesn’t depend on ZIP code, gender identity, income level, immigration status — and really creating an equal world for abortion access. “, he said.
For Keane of the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, one cause for optimism was seeing how quickly people have gotten used to the gaps in abortion access since Dobbs decision.
“It seems people didn’t realize there were people traveling to Oregon and Washington from all over the country to get medical care they couldn’t get in their own state,” she said.
It had been going on for years, but when the news cycle made it public, a wave of support soon followed.
“When people know what the situation is, they want to help,” Keane said.
