thank you. abortion is right now illegal in several states, including alabama. i am joined now by a doctor in that state who s performed abortions there of the alabama women s wellness center. dr. robinson, i appreciate you being with us tonight. should i now refer to you as a former-abortion provider in bam? alabama? well, thank you for having me. um, i still refer to myself as an abortion provider. um, we still have a lot of thinking to do around how i will continue to provide the care that my patients need. but that is very essential to who i am. um, and what matters to me so still refer to me as an abortion provider. i refer to myself as an abortion provide. i was talking to a colleague earlier today and i was just saying it is very hard, as an abortion provider, and knowing how much i care about my patients to sit in front of them right now, and i am having to think and think about what it is
was taken care of in that group of people who were the first people that i provided care for today, um, i m just hoping that they were. so, you you had a patient waiting 3:30 in the morning in the parking lot in order to get an abortion before this ruling came down? that is correct. we were about to leave the building and i checked the camera as i always do before i walk outside of the building and i could see parking-lot lights in the lot across the parking lot from are my car was parked. and so, i spoke to my husband and let him know, and so he took a look at the camera. first, he started to pick up the phone to call police and then he wound the camera back and says no, i think that is a patient that s here because we have our patients to come to start getting here as early as 7:00 so that as soon as we can open our doors and provide care at 8:00, we can start to see patients. what are the options now, if you are a woman in alabama
so we have to make sure that we continue to operate within the law and find how we continue to get patients to care. so i m clear, as of today, there will be no more abortions being provided in the state. that s correct. as of this morning, we did not get the all clear as we had gotten on previous decision days so we knew immediately that we had to cease providing abortion care. in our clinic, we had several patients that had come. we were only able to take care of a few of the patient who s had shown up to the clinic ifrlt didn t leave this building until very late last night. i know there was someone in my parking lot at 3:30. i wound the camera back because i wanted to know if that patient was taken care of, in that group of people who are the first ones i provided care for today, i m hoping that they were. so you had a patient waiting
thinking they were having procedures today, who we had not started and that we could not care for, we put them into a separate room and we talked to them all separately to let them know what we could do. so the people whop first visits he told them e we would not approximate able to provide care for them. and we apologized profusely. many of them broke down and cried and we cried with them. you know? some people they were not at all surprised. they had already been other places and couldn t get care, and so they thanked us for the information we provided and went on their way. one in particular, she was very thankful. she says we were really nice to her from the first day that she called. um, and she walked out the door with her husband and i knew she would be okay because she had a partner. she had means, and she looked like she would have no problem traveling to the next state and that s what she told me she planned to do. and then the people who were there for who thought they w
tonight as you stand. in location? people being able to see, people in this community seeing that there is still support. people getting the information that they are still able to access services, even with all the horrific news of today coming down from scotus. then also locally here in missouri from the attorney general. we have been telling people, yes, that happen. yes, nine unelected supreme court justices, yes, that decision came from them. yes, we have this attorney general who cares so much about life that he was also the one that was fighting against children wearing masks in school. he cares about life so much. but we are making sure there are advocates, abortion providers, community members, people doing the work to make sure people are still able to access care even though as of today in missouri, you are not able to get an abortion. and to be clear, in missouri,