Louisiana is one of several states that have essentially banned all abortions. Traveling out of state was the only abortion option for 45-year-old Victoria. “It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to go through,” she says. Victoria’s story reflects a wider American reality, where women must navigate through a patchwork of states with varying levels of access.. The average travel time to an abortion facility more than tripled, from less than 30 minutes to more than an hour and a half, after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. For women in Texas and Louisiana, average travel times to the nearest abortion facility were seven hours longer – almost a full workday to get an abortion. “I’m one of. the lucky ones and that there are so many women who are in much tighter positions,” Victoria says. “And, God, what are they going to do?” Victoria says getting the procedure gave her “a lot of self-confidence” She says she was grateful to have a supportive, female boss who showed understanding for why she had to take a day off to fly across the country and work remotely for two days. She says the hardest of her experience was telling her mother because she didn’t know how her mom would feel about it. Her mother asked not to be named for privacy reasons, her mother says she wanted to support her daughter, even if she does not agree with what she did. “The only thing I could do that was the real game-changing thing I wanted to do was to do what she wanted,” Victoria’s mother says, “and I just wanted me to do it” The procedure was performed by a doctor in Oregon, where the procedure is available by telehealth. The provider sent instructions, including that the patient must be in Oregon for the telehealth appointment, according to documents provided to . They contacted her within an hour of making the appointment to make sure she had proof of travel documents because she had made it from Louisiana. Victoria says she considered close states, like Florida, but she ultimately dismissed them because available appointments were farther out. “Once I saw that Oregon was so, so protective of reproductive rights, I said, ‘Why would I think about going anywhere else?'” she said, “I was like, ‘OK, let’s book a flight to Oregon. When can we do this?'” Victoria says the only person she broke down and cried for was her mother, who she says supported her on several crises in her life. She was raised Catholic and her mother is a non-practicing Catholic, but they have different views, but that didn’t matter, she says, because she wanted her daughter to be able to have the abortion she wanted. She planned to take one more day off of work to get the procedure, which fits her hybrid work situation, and she says she’s grateful she could afford to spend $1,000 for the procedure. She reached out to a friend from college and asked if she could stay with her, detailing the reason for her visit.
A 45-year-old woman who got pregnant in a state with a ban on abortions flew across the country to get one.
