Abortion care providers react to SCOTUS ruling, overturning Roe V. Wade

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - Abortion care providers in Oregon are dealing with a heavy heart after hearing the news the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade allowing several states to ban abortions.

Planned Parenthood Assistant Manager Cecelia Ortiz-Barreiro was brought to tears, upset for those living in states impacted by the ruling.

“It’s very difficult to believe this actually happened, even though we did not think it would,” Ortiz-Barreiro said through tears.

“I was actually walking over to take care of patients in clinic this morning when we got the news, and everybody in the clinic was just incredibly upset including patients who were just coming in for general care. The mood was really dismal,” Dr. Alison Edelman, OHSU’s Director of their Complex Family Planning Division, said.

This ruling won’t impact Oregon though. There are virtually no abortion restrictions and because of that, Edelman said they’ve been preparing for out-of-state patients for a while now.

“We’ve been hearing nationally that we expect an increase in 234% in individuals traveling to our state to receive healthcare here that they can’t receive in their own state. So, we have been surge planning for a while because of that statistic and we knew this decision was coming down the pike,” Edelman said.

Her patients have been preparing for this day too, after seeing other states pass restrictive abortion laws.

“Especially because of SB8 in Texas and then most recently the Oklahoma law which was incredibly concerning for patients. We’ve had an increase in patients asking for permanent contraception, or tubal ligation because they feel like they want to have that control over their bodies and not be forced to have children,” Edelman said.

Despite a long year and a half navigating the pandemic, Edelman said they’re ready to take care of visitors who need it.

“We already have healthcare capacity issues, people are tired, burnt out, but we need to take care of these patients. It’s going to be similar to COVID, they’re going to come and we’re going to need to take care of them,” she said.

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