After the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, three of Montana’s four neighboring states banned abortion, and the fourth, Wyoming, only has one clinic.
Nurse Practitioner Helen Weems runs All Families Healthcare in Whitefish.
“I used to do more primary care. And after Dobbs, I shifted to just reproductive health care in anticipation of an influx of patients from out of state,” she says.
But that didn’t happen. The federal government lifted restrictions on mailing a key abortion drug during the COVID pandemic. That allowed providers to send meds to states where abortions were becoming illegal.
By last year, mailed medications accounted for nearly a third of all abortions nationally, according to WeCount, which tracks abortion data.
“And then that spread into Montana,” Weems says.
Since Dobbs, the number of abortions in Montana has risen at least 20%, according to WeCount and other data sources.
“By and large, the increase has been Montanans,” Weems says.
She says mailing medications throughout the state made that increase possible.
The Dobbs ruling also inadvertently contributed to that increase in another way. More people became aware of the Montana Abortion Access Fund, which can help pay for medications that can run up to $400.
Erin Case is the executive director of the Montana Abortion Access Fund.
“So we’ve seen around a 350% increase in applications for support since the Dobbs decision,” she says.
But Weems says the increased awareness of abortion medications by mail has been a double-edged sword.
“Medication abortion by mail has now become the target for anti-abortion movement because it has increased access so tremendously.”
An appeals court in Louisiana this week will hear arguments in a case that could stop people like Weems from mailing one of the primary medications used for abortions.
If that happens, Weems says she’ll turn to other medications she can put in the mail.
