Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts Statement on the Anniversary of the Dobbs Decision

BOSTON - Today marks two years since the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. In the two years since Dobbs, 21 states have banned or severely restricted abortion. 1 in 5 abortion-seekers are now traveling out of state for abortion care. Data from Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts showed a 37% increase in abortion travel to Massachusetts in the months immediately following the Dobbs decision. 

Abortion is legal in Massachusetts, where lawmakers have significantly strengthened protections and taken steps to make care more accessible. In the past two years, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM) has successfully advocated to: 

• Strengthen provisions of the ROE Act, shield providers of abortion and gender-affirming care from hostile legal action, mandate insurance providers cover abortion, and expand access to medication abortion and emergency contraception particularly on college campuses. 
• Increase state funding for reproductive health care providers and abortion funds. 
• Allow pharmacists to prescribe and dispense hormonal contraceptives. 
• Update the 2023 Health and Physical Education Framework in alignment with the Healthy Youth Act, paving the way for inclusive, medically accurate, consent based, and age-appropriate sex education to be taught in Massachusetts public schools.  

Statement from Dominique Lee, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts: 

"When Roe v. Wade was overturned, reproductive health care providers, advocates, and lawmakers responded with a clear, bold vision and plan to safeguard and expand abortion access in Massachusetts. Because of that action, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts has been able to focus on what we do best: provide the most effective, compassionate sexual and reproductive health care to whoever needs it, train abortion providers, conduct impactful research, educate our communities, and fight for equitable access.  

In the past year, PPLM has seen abortion patients from 15 different restrictive states. Our staff, including patient navigators and volunteers, help patients understand their options and rights, book flights and hotels for patients that need to travel, and connect them to abortion funds. And as a challenge to mifepristone went through the courts, we made sure medication abortion was more accessible in Massachusetts than ever. 

But we have more work to do to expand abortion access so everyone can get the care they need, when they need it. In Massachusetts, people under 16 still can’t get an abortion without parental consent or judicial bypass - we can and should eliminate this unnecessary and unfair barrier for young people. We can strengthen patient and provider protections by passing the Location Shield Act, which would ban the sale of cellphone location data so that it can’t be used by abortion opponents to track people to and from our clinics.  

Massachusetts will continue to lead the way for reproductive freedom, but our work is not done until every person – no matter who they are or where they live – has the freedom to make their own health care decisions and can access the sexual and reproductive health care that they choose.”  

About Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM): 

PPLM is the leading provider of sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion, in the Commonwealth, caring for more than 30,000 patients a year at four health centers and via telehealth. Services including abortion, contraception, cervical and breast cancer screenings, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and gender affirming care. The majority of abortion care statewide is provided at PPLM, especially in the central and western MA regions where there are fewer providers than in Greater Boston.  

Since the Dobbs decision, PPLM has taken steps to expand sexual and reproductive health care access locally and nationally through new services and partnerships, research, training, and education: 

• PPLM expanded access to abortion and contraceptive services, partnered with nine public colleges and universities as an abortion referral partner for students to have easier access to care, and began offering IUD insertion procedures with sedation to improve patients’ experience getting one of the most effective forms of birth control.  
• With the support of state funding, PPLM started a new clinical training program for nurse practitioners and physician assistants to become trained in sexual and reproductive health care, strengthening Massachusetts’ workforce.  
• PPLM’s ASPIRE Center for Sexual and Reproductive Health is conducting social science and legal research studying the impacts of abortion bans particularly on vulnerable populations and young people who travel for care, detailing the harms of parental involvement laws and the judicial bypass process on teens, and looking into the prevalent threat of anti-abortion crisis pregnant centers (CPCs).  
• Clinical researchers at PPLM led groundbreaking research examining the impact of social networks on the decision-making process of women who discontinue using IUDs, mifepristone use for early pregnancy loss and ectopic pregnancies, pain control options for outpatient procedural abortion, and much more.   
• PPLM secured a $5M, 5-year federal grant to evaluate our Get Real High School sex education curriculum. The goal is to demonstrate the curriculum's effectiveness at teen pregnancy prevention, including increased use of protection methods, improved communication skills, and other areas of sexual health. 

To learn more or to speak with someone at PPLM, contact Caroline Kimball-Katz, communications director, at [email protected]. 

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