Safe abortion is a class issue. The right to choose is meaningless if you can not get an abortion when and where you need one. In 2005, 87 percent of all U.S. counties lacked an abortion provider; 35 percent of American women live in those areas. Almost 25 percent of women requiring an abortion travel over 50 miles to obtain the procedure. Further, 24 states also require women to return to the clinic or doctor's office for the procedure 24 hours or more after their initial counseling session. For women taking time off work or traveling long distances to clinics, this waiting period can prevent them from obtaining a termination.

With the costs of travel and waiting periods forcing overnight stays away from home, and the price tag for a safe, legal increases rapidly. Even when available, many women without insurance are unable to afford the procedure. (Passed 30 years ago, the Hyde Amendment banned Medicaid from paying for abortions other than in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the woman.) Often by the time a woman has located a clinic, arranged transportation and lodging, and cobbled together the money, she may be too far along for the nearest clinic to help. Hopefully, these women learn that safe, legal abortions are obtainable in New York City up to 24 weeks. However, even if they can get here, the average price of a hotel room is over $250, and women whose budgets are already stretched beyond their means face a night on park benches or in their cars during their two day outpatient procedure.

When Catherine Megill, a social worker at a clinic, found out that some patients had no place to stay, she decided to do something about it. In 2001, the Haven Coalition began providing shelter for women forced to travel to New York to exercise their right to an abortion. Haven volunteers open their homes to low income women traveling to New York City to obtain a second trimester abortion. It exists because abortion, while legal, is not always accessible.

If a Haven-affiliated clinic has a patient who needs a place to stay, a volunteer brings her home. Sometimes these women come alone; if not, Haven hosts also welcome their husbands, boyfriends, mothers, fathers, sisters, cousins, or friends. Hosts offer their guests dinner, a safe place to sleep, and transportation back to the clinic at dawn.

Haven is not “pro-abortion.” If quality sex education, birth control, and emergency contraception were universally available, there would be fewer abortions. These days, a woman’s self-determination is increasingly thwarted by legislation and access issues markedly punitive to poor women. Reproductive rights should not include a choice between rent, food, child care, or abortion, nor mean taking time off work, traveling hundreds of miles to a strange city, and deciding whether to stay in a stranger’s home or sleep on the street.

Some people march and sign petitions and enact change on a larger or legislative scale. While they work to make reproductive freedom a reality, Haven hosts ease the burden of the women caught in the crosshairs of this battle, one night at a time.

Haven is a nonprofit organization. To volunteer or make a tax-deductible donation to help support the logistical framework of Haven’s volunteer network, check out the Haven Coalition website.

To read more about Haven, see:

Suzanne also blogs at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch & Other Rants