Yellowhammer Fund, an Alabama reproductive justice organization, purchased last week the West Alabama Women’s Center abortion clinic. The clinic is one of three abortion clinics left in the state.
In their May 15th announcement, the group stated, ”West Alabama Women’s Center has been a hub for abortion access for nearly three decades, and we want to be sure it remains so for as long as abortion is legal in the state. That is why we have acquired the clinic ourselves, allowing the founder, Gloria Gray, to finally retire without any concerns that the clinic will fall into the hands of abortion opponents or otherwise be closed. We are looking forward to expanding services there and helping Alabamians access a full range of reproductive healthcare services – including trans healthcare – within the next year”
In the last few years, West Alabama Women’s Center has provided more than half of the abortions in the state and served people across the Southeast in areas where anti-abortion laws make access to difficult.
This purchase occurred about a year after Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed the Human Life Protection Act, which would have banned abortion in Alabama– a law designed to challenge Roe v. Wade in court. Today, Yellowhammer Fund reported, “abortion is still completely available in clinics without fear of prosecution”, as the law was blocked by a federal judge from taking effect while the challenge plays out in court.
Yellowhammer was able to fundraise for the purchase off of the massive nationwide support for the organization after last year’s ban was signed.
“That’s really fantastic, to be able to say that one year later, after [lawmakers] passed an abortion ban, we now have enough resources to buy a clinic and make not only abortion care more accessible, but comprehensive reproductive and sexual health care more accessible to people in Alabama,” Reyes said. “That’s not something [those lawmakers] were intending to do.”
Sources: Time 5/16/20; Yellowhammer Fund 5/15/20; West Alabama Women’s Center; Mother Jones 5/15/20; Time 5/15/19
