Abortion resistance braces for demands of a post-Roe future

The day’s first caller begged for help to cross state lines and end her pregnancy. “Please,” the woman from Texas said in her voicemail. “Anything would be greatly appreciated.”

Three states away, in southern Illinois, Alison Dreith heard the plea and ground a toothpick between her teeth. She’d started chewing them last year as a stress reliever the day Texas all but banned abortions. Now the stick darted across her mouth, left to right, right to left. She felt shaky.

“It’s starting,” said Dreith. “What we’ve been worrying about for years.”

When desperate people can’t obtain abortions near home -- when they need plane tickets, bus fare, babysitters -- they reach out to groups like Dreith’s, the Midwest Access Coalition. The demand has become staggering. Now, for the first time, she would have to tell a caller “No.”

The U.S. Supreme Court this summer is expected to gut Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that made abortion a constitutional right. But already, state after state has tightened restrictions, pushing pregnant people further from home, for some hundreds of miles away.

Dreith and her collective are scrambling to pave avenues for them. There are almost 100 grassroots groups organizing as a safety valve for the vast swaths of the South and Midwest where abortion may soon be barred.

On this morning, Dreith’s phone buzzed with messages from her fellow abortion activists across the country, bemoaning the now-constant headlines bearing bad news about abortion rights. They’ve spent years battling abortion restrictions, getting arrested as they bellowed against bans, escorting pregnant people into clinics through throngs of protesters screaming “baby killer.” Now, helpless to prevent the coming crisis, the goal has become purely practical: assist abortion seekers one by...