A groundbreaking new experiment is launching in four states that could make abortion dramatically more accessible by allowing women to obtain abortion-inducing drugs through the mail.
The program, which will be run as a pilot study out of four clinics in New York, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington state, is a first in the US – and one that its architects urgently hope to expand as the country’s abortion clinics close down at historic rates.
“It’s the future,” said Esther Priegue, the director of counseling at Choices Women’s Medical Center in Queens, New York, where the first of the pilot programs launched last week. She spoke in her office, after walking through a waiting room thronged with women, many of them holding young children. “Especially in the times we’re living in today, women experience so many struggles getting through our doors. They’re mothers. They work. Imagine if they could do it all from home, and never have to step into the clinic for even a moment.”
At a time when the Republican frontrunner for president, Donald Trump, has called for women who have illegal abortions to face punishment, the study represents an island of progress for an abortion rights movement that can seem constantly beset on all sides.
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