{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Abortion access constrained even where it remains legal","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":388,"description":"August 4, 2022 — Abortion remains legal in California, but there have been barriers to access since well before the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. \r\n\r\nIn Mendocino county, where poverty is high and roads are long, religious hospitals and federally funded clinics dominate the healthcare landscape.\r\n\r\nBut the pandemic has legitimized telehealth, and the use of abortion pills is on the rise. Organizations whose mission it is to increase access are flush with volunteers. \r\n\r\nGloria Martinez, the Senior Director of Operations at Planned Parenthood Northern California, said her affiliate calls on an organization called Access Reproductive Justice about once a week to give patients a ride or airfare, or even to help cover the cost of abortion. Access Reproductive Justice is not accepting applications for volunteers at this time due to overwhelming interest. \r\n\r\nMartinez says Planned Parenthood is upping its availability. “We’re actually doing good on access,” she said. “Which means that most individuals can access an appointment within seven days…the reason we’ve been able to maintain our access as such — and in some cases, depending on the week and the location, they can get in sooner than the seven days — the reason we have been able to maintain that level of access is we’ve been planning for it by increasing hours, making sure we have more evening hours availab.e weekend hours as well, and then alsoy increasing our staffing and the number of staff members who are trained to provide abortion services, not just providers, but also frontline staff.”\r\n\r\nBut religious hospitals, which manage one out of five hospital beds in the country, and all the hospitals in Mendocino County, routinely deny abortion care. In 2019, when the Mendocino Coast Healthcare District Board was looking for a larger hospital to take over the small hospital in Fort Bragg, the ACLU sent the board a letter reminding it that, as a public entity, the MCHD was required under the California...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}