INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana's near-total abortion ban is expected to take effect soon.
Already, health care providers and pregnant women are taking action in the final weeks of legal abortion care in the Hoosier state.
Planned Parenthood, the state of Indiana's largest abortion care provider, told 13News last week that they are fully booked for appointments. But Deborah Nucatola, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood Great Northwest Hawai'i, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky, said they're still working to try and find room for as many as they can with the ban fast approaching.
The ban is once again expected to take effect after the Indiana Supreme Court's decision to uphold the state's abortion ban, sending the case back down to the lower courts but removing an existing injunction on the law. For Hoosiers, abortion care is expected to cease Aug. 1.
That ban will end abortions except in cases of rape and incest up to 10 weeks, lethal fetal anomalies, and to save the life of the mother up to 20 weeks. It prevents clinics from providing those abortions. Instead, those will need to happen at hospitals.
With that deadline looming, Nucatola said they're trying to make sure women who need it can access care right until that ban takes effect.
"We're really committed to seeing every patient we can see until we can no longer provide abortion legally in Indiana," Nucatola said. "Our operations team has been meeting to determine where and when we can add clinic days, and we've been able to do that. We've opened up additional days, and we have several other days on hold in the event we need to add those as well."
Indiana's abortion ban won't just impact Hoosier women, but pregnant people around the country. According to Nucatola, in the last year, demand for care has increased between 200% and 300%, with one-third of pregnant people coming from Kentucky alone.
Even if the ban takes effect, Planned Parenthood has stressed they aren't going anywhere. They'll continue to stay open, offering contraception, STI testing and health care to those who need it. Nucatola said should Indiana's ban be overturned or an injunction issued, Planned Parenthood will be ready to resume abortion care in the Hoosier state once again.
Following the Indiana Supreme Court's ruling on the measure, Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, R-Martinsville, sent the following statement about the court's decision to allow the ban to move ahead:
"We set out to pass a bill in the special session that would protect life and support mothers and babies, and that's what we did. It was always our intent to draft a bill that could withstand a constitutional challenge, and I am grateful to see Indiana's Supreme Court recognize that the General Assembly has the constitutional authority to protect unborn life in the womb."