The Midwestern US is an "abortion desert"

When we talk about the difficulty of accessing abortion care in the US, we often focus on Texas and the South. According to a recent study, though, clinics are actually more rare in the Midwest than in any other part of the country.

Researchers from the University of California - San Francisco counted 780 abortion providers nationwide in May 2017. That's about one clinic for every 95,033 women of reproductive age in the US—not great, but not terrible, at least not until the researchers started digging into geographic differences.

The South had just one clinic for every 145,645 women, but the researchers were expecting that. They didn't expect the Midwest to have one clinic for every 165,886 women—a higher ratio than any other region. What's more, Illinois, with a clinic for every 120,135 women, is an oasis of abortion access in the Midwest compared to neighboring Wisconsin, which has one clinic for every 423,590 women.

Living in an abortion desert doesn't have to mean driving hundreds of miles to visit a clinic. You have alternatives! There's a global network of groups and resources available to answer your questions about abortion with pills, help you get the abortion pill, and explain how to use it safely in your own home. If you're in the US, you can learn more at AbortionPillInfo.org.