Patients support Montana clinic facing anti-abortion threats

[April 22, 2023]  By Callaghan O'Hare

(Reuters) - The day after her 22d birthday, a woman sits under a blanket clutching her abdomen in a room lit by a single lamp. A little more than 18 weeks pregnant, she has traveled nearly nine hours

from her home to Missoula, a college town in the western Montana mountains, for a surgical abortion at the Blue Mountain Clinic.

The next day, a squirmy six-month-old waits with her parents for a check-up at the primary care facility in Missoula. And later that week, a 71-year-old man consults his doctor on ways to manage pain from prostate cancer.

This breadth of services has attracted patients from far and wide to Blue Mountain Clinic, one of a few facilities in Montana that offer abortions, along with psychiatric treatment, gender-affirming and general care.

"When they walk through those doors nobody knows what they're here for," said Nicole Smith, executive director of the clinic which began as a feminist health collective in 1977.

"That creates an incredible level of confidentiality and safety that so few clinics across the country are able to provide."

Abortion remains legal in Montana based upon a constitutional right to privacy affirmed by the state Supreme Court's decision in Armstrong v. State in 1999. That may change after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark ruling that the U.S. Constitution protects a woman's right to choose an abortion.

On April 7, the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a bill that would ban dilation and evacuation, the most common abortion procedure after the first trimester. If the bill takes effect, Blue Mountain Clinic's medical providers could face a $50,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison for performing the procedure.

A 6-month-old receives a check up at Blue Mountain Clinic in Missoula, Montana, U.S. February 23, 2023. The child, her older brother, and her parents, are all patients at Blue Mountain Clinic. "There's a really strong relationship we have with our doctor", Abigail Carey, the child's mother, said. "We all know her. She knows all of us. It feels almost old fashioned." REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare

"It's one of the major heartbeats of this community," said Gay Allison, who received an abortion before Roe v. Wade legalized the procedure. "So many people would be very unhappy if something were to happen so that (Blue Mountain Clinic) wasn't here anymore. We'd lose a great thing."

Thirty years ago, Blue Mountain Clinic was firebombed by an anti-abortion protester. The community raised money to rebuild the clinic, which reopened at its current location in 1995.

From late February through early April, anti-abortion group 40 Days For Life held a small prayer vigil outside Blue Mountain Clinic.

"It's advertised as a center that destroys and eliminates and exterminates a segment of our population," said Diane Rotering, who led the protest.

A recent poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 64% of Montanans agree that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

"What we're dealing with right now is a few ideological politicians," Smith said. "They're just driving a narrative that is extreme and is not supported by the large majority of the population both in Montana, in our neighboring states and around this country."

(Reporting by Callaghan O'Hare; Editing by Richard Chang)

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