Takeaways from AP's report on a new abortion clinic in rural southeast Kansas

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Takeaways from AP's report on a new abortion clinic in rural southeast Kansas

2024-09-15 12:08 Last Updated At：17:40

PITTSBURG, Kan. (AP) — A new abortion clinic has brought the debate over reproductive rights to a small college town in the southeast corner of Kansas. It’s one of the few states left in the region still allowing abortions.

A religious, Republican-leaning semi-rural location like Pittsburg, Kansas, would have been unlikely to host an abortion clinic before Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, but that is changing across the country.

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Anti-abortion protester Deborah Green-Myers, from Pittsburg, Kan., demonstrates outside a recently opened Planned Parenthood clinic, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Pittsburg, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Security personnel stand outside a recently opened Planned Parenthood clinic, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Pittsburg, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Anti-abortion protester Deborah Green-Myers, from Pittsburg, Kan., demonstrates outside a recently opened Planned Parenthood clinic, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Pittsburg, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Security personnel stand outside a recently opened Planned Parenthood clinic, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Pittsburg, Kan., that is serving patients from Kansas as well as nearby Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and other states. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

People drive through downtown Pittsburg, Kan., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, that is home to a new Planned Parenthood clinic serving patients from Kansas as well as nearby Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and other states where abortions have become illegal or hard to get. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Security personnel stand outside a recently opened Planned Parenthood clinic, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Pittsburg, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

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Anti-abortion protester Deborah Green-Myers, from Pittsburg, Kan., demonstrates outside a recently opened Planned Parenthood clinic, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Pittsburg, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Security personnel stand outside a recently opened Planned Parenthood clinic, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Pittsburg, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Anti-abortion protester Deborah Green-Myers, from Pittsburg, Kan., demonstrates outside a recently opened Planned Parenthood clinic, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Pittsburg, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Security personnel stand outside a recently opened Planned Parenthood clinic, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Pittsburg, Kan., that is serving patients from Kansas as well as nearby Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and other states. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

People drive through downtown Pittsburg, Kan., Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, that is home to a new Planned Parenthood clinic serving patients from Kansas as well as nearby Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and other states where abortions have become illegal or hard to get. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Security personnel stand outside a recently opened Planned Parenthood clinic, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, in Pittsburg, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

The Associated Press reported on the new clinic and the town's reactions. Here are key takeaways.

Over the past two years, Kansas is one of five states that people are most likely to travel to in order to get an abortion if their state doesn't offer the procedure, said Caitlin Myers, an economics professor at Middlebury College who researches abortion policies.

Abortions have spiked by 152% in Kansas after Roe, according to a recent analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights.

Using Myers’ count, six of the clinics in Kansas, Illinois, New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia that have opened or relocated post-Roe are in communities with fewer than 25,000 people. Two others are in communities of fewer than 50,000.

Five weeks after Roe was overturned, voters in Kansas had to decide whether to strip the right to an abortion from the state constitution, which could have led to an outright ban.

Pittsburg is in Crawford County, where 55% of voters were part of the 59% of voters statewide who killed the proposal. But the rural counties surrounding Pittsburg voted for the amendment.

Kansas' statewide percentage is in line with an Associated Press-NORC poll from 2024 that showed 6 in 10 Americans think their state should generally allow a person to obtain a legal abortion if they don’t want to be pregnant for any reason.

Abortion in Kansas is generally legal up until the 22nd week of pregnancy.

The new abortion clinic will be run by Planned Parenthood Great Plains. Its location is a few minutes' drive from the Missouri border and is less than an hour away from Oklahoma.

All of Kansas' other abortion clinics are in larger metro areas, where clinics have expanded hours — but appointments are still in short supply. About 60% to 65% of people who call Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas for an abortion appointment are turned away because there isn’t enough capacity, said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains.

The bulk of people looking for abortions in Kansas are from out of state — mostly Texas, which is about five hours south, Wales said. She added that some come from as far away as Louisiana and even Florida, which now prohibits the procedure after six weeks.

Experts said smaller-sized clinics can be less overwhelming for women who are coming from rural areas, like those surrounding Pittsburg. But, often, there is little anonymity in these places where religious and family ties often run deep.

Pittsburg is home to a state university with about 7,400 students. The town is also is increasingly religious, with twice as many white evangelical Protestants as the national average, and the area is increasingly Republican.

Pittsburg State students who The Associated Press talked to are supportive of the clinic, as are many of the Democrats in town.

But churches in Pittsburg are training people on how to protest at the abortion clinic, and Vie Medical Clinic, a crisis pregnancy center, has seen an increase in donations.

Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

South and Midwest face potentially catastrophic rains and floods while reeling from tornadoes

2025-04-05 01:59 Last Updated At：02:01

HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Torrential rains and flash flooding battered parts of the Midwest and South on Friday, killing a boy in Kentucky who was swept away as he walked to a school bus stop. Many communities were left reeling from tornadoes that destroyed whole neighborhoods and killed at least seven people earlier this week.

Forecasters warned of potentially catastrophic weather, with round after round of heavy rains expected in the central U.S. through Saturday. Satellite imagery showed thunderstorms lined up like freight trains over communities in Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky, according to the national Weather Prediction Center in Maryland.

In Kentucky early Friday, a boy died after floodwaters swept him away while he was walking to a school bus stop in Frankfort, Gov. Andy Beshear said on social media.

The dousing inundated Kentucky highways, causing numerous road closures. A mudslide on a busy highway on the outskirts of Louisville caused a long traffic backup as crews worked to clear the road. The downtown area of Hopkinsville — a city of 31,000 residents 72 miles (116 kilometers) northwest of Nashville — was submerged. Water rescues were underway.

“The main arteries through Hopkinsville are probably 2 feet under water,” said Christian County Judge-Executive Jerry Gilliam. “So the mayor has closed downtown down for all traffic. Our office is actually in the middle of it and we were here before the water rose. So there’s only one way we could get out.”

Tony Kirves and a group of friends used sandbags and a vacuum as they tried to hold back rising floodwaters that covered the basement and seeped into the ground floor of his photography business in Hopkinsville. He said the downtown area was "like a lake."

“We’re holding ground,” he said. “We’re trying to maintain and keep it out the best we can."

A corridor from northeast Texas through Arkansas and into southeast Missouri, which has a population of about 2.3 million, could see clusters of severe thunderstorms late Friday. The National Weather Service’s Oklahoma-based Storm Prediction Center warned of the potential for intense tornadoes and large hail.

The seven people killed in the initial wave of storms that spawned powerful tornadoes on Wednesday and early Thursday were in Tennessee, Missouri and Indiana. They included Garry Moore, chief of the Whitewater Fire Protection District in Missouri. He died while likely trying to help a stranded motorist, according to Highway Patrol spokesperson Sgt. Clark Parrott.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said entire neighborhoods in the hard-hit town of Selmer were “completely wiped out” and said it was too early to know whether there were more deaths as searches continued.

With flattened homes behind him, Dakota Woods described seeing the twister come through Selmer.

“I was walking down the street,” Woods said Thursday. “Next thing you know, I look up, the sky is getting black and blacker, and it’s lighting up green lights, and it’s making a formation of a twister or tornado.”

Heavy rains were expected to continue in parts of Missouri, Kentucky and elsewhere in the coming days and could produce dangerous flash floods capable of sweeping away cars.

In Hopkinsville, 5 to 8 inches of rain (12.7 centimeters to 20 centimeters) had fallen by Thursday morning, causing the Little River to surge over its banks.

A pet boarding business was under water, forcing rescuers to move dozens of dogs to a local animal shelter, said Gilliam, the county executive. On Friday morning, crews had already rescued people from four or five vehicles and multiple homes, mostly by boat to evacuate people, said Randy Graham, the emergency management director in Christian County.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen downtown,” Gilliam said.

Kentucky’s road conditions website showed scores of state roads closed by high water on Friday morning. A landslide closed a nearly 3-mile (4.8-kilometer) stretch of Mary Ingles Highway in northern Kentucky early Friday, according to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. A landslide closed the same section of road in 2019 and it reopened last year, WLWT-TV reports.

Flash flooding is particularly worrisome in rural Kentucky where water can rush off the mountains into the hollows. Less than four years ago, dozens died in flooding across eastern Kentucky.

Extreme flooding across the corridor that includes Louisville, Kentucky, and Memphis — which have major cargo hubs — could also lead to shipping and supply chain delays, said Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather.

Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong wind shear and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf.

Homes were ripped to their foundations in Selmer, Tennessee, which was hit by a tornado with winds estimated up to 160 mph (257 kph), according to the weather service.

Tennessee Highway Patrol video showed lightning illuminating the sky as first responders scoured the ruins of a home, looking for anyone trapped.

In neighboring Arkansas, a tornado near Blytheville lofted debris at least 25,000 feet (7.6 kilometers) high, according to weather service meteorologist Chelly Amin. The state’s emergency management office reported damage in 22 counties from tornadoes, wind, hail and flash flooding.

The home where Danny Qualls spent his childhood but no longer lives was flattened by a tornado in northeast Arkansas.

“My husband has been extremely tearful and emotional, but he also knows that we have to do the work,” Rhonda Qualls said. “He was in shock last night, cried himself to sleep.”

Workers on bulldozers cleared rubble along the highway that crosses through Lake City, where a tornado with winds of 150 mph (241 kph) sheared roofs off homes, collapsed brick walls and tossed cars into trees.

Mississippi's governor said at least 60 homes were damaged. And in far western Kentucky, four people were injured while taking shelter in a vehicle under a church carport, according to the emergency management office in Ballard County.

Walker IV reported from Selmer, Tennessee, and Schreiner reported from Shelbyville, Kentucky. Associated Press writers Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas and Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed.