The 700-Mile Journey to Get an Abortion
Synopsis
As more states continue to restrict abortion, entire swaths of the country have become reproductive health deserts, forcing people to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to end a pregnancy. Marie Claire reporter Andrea Stanley joins a network of pilots who are volunteering their time — and planes — to fly abortion seekers from states where the procedure is banned to states where it’s legal.
One pilot recounted the call she makes to each passenger ahead of time, explaining: “I say, ‘Hey listen , I am so proud to fly you…I’m a great pilot. I’ve done tens of thousands of miles in the air. I care about you. You are my number one priority for the day. Nothing else matters.’”
The first person Clyde* helped get an abortion was a stranger. The text came in, urgent and last-minute. One passenger. 150 pounds. Spanish speaker. Clyde was worried. Not about helping, but about the weather. It was July and hot, meaning pockets of volatile air and pop-up thunderstorms could jeopardize everything, or at the least, make for a rough ride. There were over 300 miles to travel, one way, in a small four-seat plane. Not necessarily dangerous, but risky. To wait would mean a missed appointment at the clinic, though. That’s the rub when you have limited options.
Okay, he texted. I’ll go.
The plan was the meet the woman at a small regional airfield the next day at 5 a.m. Clyde would fly the woman from her home state, where abortion was illegal, to a state where it wasn’t.
Access to women’s healthcare is going to require an overground railroad and that’s what general aviation affords us. No one can touch us up there.
Except she didn’t show. Clyde texted, asking where she was. Clyde texted, confirming the directions. Clyde texted, a selfie so she could find him even though there was no one else around. The image showed a white man, thin, the age of someone with investment accounts and a paid-off mortgage.
Eventually, after some back and forth, two headlights appeared in the thicket of darkness. From the corner of a parking lot, a car slowly drove forward, an older woman behind the wheel, staring straight ahead. Another woman in her early 20s got out, tucking a small cloth bag under her arm. She was nervous. Clyde could see it in the way she looked at the ground while approaching him; the way she held her shoulders tight and tense.
It dawned on him that she probably wavered about getting out of the car because she was fearful it was all a trap. He got emotional thinking about it. How the woman had to meet a stranger, alone in the dark, in the desperate hope that he was there to help, not hurt her. It upset him, and got him thinking about how society had turned against so many people and made them feel unworthy. Clyde thought, Why do people want to treat women like this?
As they flew off into the sky, purpling like a bruise with early-morning light, the woman fell asleep in the back of the plane. By that afternoon, she wasn’t pregnant anymore.
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