Abortion advocates in the west worry that telehealth services could come under threat with a second Trump administration.
According to a report released earlier this month, about 1 in 5 abortions [20 percent] are now done through telehealth in the U.S. That’s up from just 4 percent before Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Technological advancements during the pandemic also laid the groundwork for that shift. Patients virtually meet with providers, who then mail them a series of pills that terminate the pregnancy.
“We have doubled down in terms of expanding our healthcare through telehealth,” Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains’ Sarah Taylor-Nanista said while on a fundraising trip in Jackson Hole.
These Planned Parenthood clinics are based in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico but serve patients across the region. For example, there’s been a 28 percent increase in telehealth patients from Wyoming, where abortion is still legal but access is limited by geography.
Taylor-Nanista said she’s worried about more restrictions.
“The Trump administration and anti-choicers are really looking at how can they limit the expansion of healthcare through telehealth and that would have extraordinarily negative impacts on our patients,” she said.
Former President Donald Trump has been flip-flopping on his abortion views depending on what’s politically favorable but, earlier this month, indicated he’s open to banning the pills used to terminate pregnancies.
His team has since tried to walk that statement back, but there’s still a lot of uncertainties of what he’d support if reelected.
If abortion pills are ultimately banned, Taylor-Nanista said the Planned Parenthood offices in the region would only be able to provide in-person procedures.
“That has limitations for folks who aren’t in a state or within a good traveling distance of a brick-and-mortar health center where they can get procedural abortion,” she said.
Over the last few years, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains has seen the number of people traveling to the clinics for abortion go up by 142 percent.
Many of those people are Texans, since the organization only offers telehealth services to patients in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Southern Nevada.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio (KNPR) in Las Vegas, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
