--- title: Alabama Clinic Relaunches After Roe v. Wade Is Overturned description: When abortion became illegal in Alabama, West Alabama Women’s Center relaunched as a nonprofit reproductive health center. canonical: https://time.com/6200914/alabama-clinic-after-roe-v-wade/ author: Robin Marty article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-07-28T11:00:51.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:38:27.178Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Alabama Clinic Relaunches After Roe v. Wade Is Overturned og:description: When abortion became illegal in Alabama, West Alabama Women’s Center relaunched as a nonprofit reproductive health center. og:url: https://time.com/6200914/alabama-clinic-after-roe-v-wade/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbe0ff88f556263e3/698a340e096a94e8ed6accd3/alabama-clinic-after-roe-overturned-robin-marty-sign.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: alabama-clinic-after-roe-overturned-robin-marty-sign og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Alabama Clinic Relaunches After Roe v. Wade Is Overturned twitter:description: When abortion became illegal in Alabama, West Alabama Women’s Center relaunched as a nonprofit reproductive health center. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbe0ff88f556263e3/698a340e096a94e8ed6accd3/alabama-clinic-after-roe-overturned-robin-marty-sign.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # An Alabama Clinic Reinvents Itself for a Post-_Roe_ World > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: A History of How Abortion is Shown in Film and Television [Watch (HLS stream): A History of How Abortion is Shown in Film and Television](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Ca77dTts.m3u8) (8:41)  _Published 2022-07-05. TIME explores abortion and how it's covered across media; from films that tell cautionary tales and depict the procedure as life-upending to more compassionate pieces that portray the varied experiences of women._ Jul 28, 2022 11:00 AM UTC  Director of operations Robin Marty outside the West Alabama Women’s Center on July 11, 2022, the day the clinic reopened as a new nonprofit entity. Director of operations Robin Marty outside the West Alabama Women’s Center on July 11, 2022, the day the clinic reopened as a new nonprofit entity. Lucy Garrett for TIME by [Robin Marty](https://time.com/author/robin-marty/) ## Robin Marty Jul 28, 2022 11:00 AM UTC On the morning the Supreme Court announced that it had [overturned ](https://time.com/6189476/abortion-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/)_Roe v. Wade,_ we had 21 patients in our lobby waiting to have an abortion. We cried as we were forced to turn them all away. They cried as they realized the very same medical procedure that was legal only a few minutes earlier was no longer available to them. But the reality was that each of those people represented a potential felony for my staff—and up to 99 years in prison. Within hours of the decision in _Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,_ the injunction on a 2019 law was lifted and abortion became illegal in almost all instances in the state of Alabama. --- ### More from TIME --- Before the ruling, 95% of the patients we saw at West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa were terminating pregnancies. By the time it came down, we were seeing patients from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas on a regular basis, some traveling as far as 600 miles for our care because there were no closer appointments. We gave [medication abortions](https://time.com/6190341/how-abortion-pills-work/) to 67 people the day before the court upended nearly a half-century of precedent, in an effort to meet the needs of this overflow of patients. Now providing such services was against the law, even though the need would only grow.  Office manager Tina Collins, left, and administrative assistant Gail Latham at the clinic on July 11\. A small portion of the photograph has been obscured to protect personal privacy. Lucy Garrett for TIME  A calendar in the office notes the relaunch of the clinic. Lucy Garrett for TIME  Medical assistant Ramona Wallace, left, embraces Gail Latham on July 11. Lucy Garrett for TIME Within days we were warned by legal advisers that assisting the more than 100 patients who had completed “first day” appointments—an ultrasound, counseling, and a state-mandated information packet that must be provided 48 hours before a patient can return to a clinic for an abortion—may be seen as “conspiracy” under the new law. But we couldn’t abandon our patients. We offered them the name of a clinic in another state to reach out to, and provided financial resources to those who needed them in order to travel that far. To leave them with no idea of where to go next or how to get there wasn’t just morally wrong, it was medically wrong too. First, do no harm. At the same time that we were finishing assisting our now former patients, we fielded phone calls from other people who didn’t believe the ban was actually in place, or who hoped their case could be an exception. Out of fear of legal reprisals, we refused to tell them where the open clinics were or where they could get financial help, as there was no way to know who was truly in need and who was an abortion opponent hoping to catch us breaking a purposefully vague new law. We turned away patients who arrived at our door anyway, patients who had missed messages telling them their appointments had been canceled or who just had to give it one try, because being pregnant when you do not want to be fills you with a desperation that will make you try any option, no matter how impossible it may be.  Nurse Francia Webb Lucy Garrett for TIME  Dr. Leah Torres, director of patient care and programs at West Alabama Women’s Center Lucy Garrett for TIME  Dr. Leah Torres sets up an ultrasound machine for an incoming patient on July 22. Lucy Garrett for TIME In those first post-_Roe_ days, our voices echoed through the building’s two lobbies, chairs empty for the first time since our patient numbers began swelling at the beginning of 2022, when the Louisiana abortion seekers started showing up regularly, and then the [Texans followed soon after](https://time.com/6101739/abortion-access-alabama/). We had been seeing as many as 30 patients a day, five days a week, without any break or rest. In that silence, we knew we were all exhausted and heartbroken and had absolutely nothing left to give. No medical care. No financial support. Not even basic, publicly available information. --- **Many abortion providers** in the U.S. have closed their doors since the _Dobbs_ decision. Some are relocating to states with fewer restrictions in order to continue supporting patients seeking abortion care. The building that housed the [Mississippi clinic at the center of the Supreme Court case](https://time.com/6116072/mississippi-abortion-supreme-court-jackson-womens-health/), for instance, has been sold, and the owner and executive director will operate a new clinic in New Mexico. They are already facing protests from abortion opponents, and an anti-abortion organization has bought the space next door, proving that [some battles are never going to change](https://time.com/6190995/abortion-future-after-roe/). [Whole Woman’s Health](https://time.com/4835000/whole-womans-health-abortion-rights-supreme-court-anniversary/), the provider involved in the Supreme Court case that reaffirmed _Roe_ in 2016, announced the closure of its entire chain of Texas clinics. While it, too, will open a new center in New Mexico, the hole it’ll leave behind will be impossible to fill. The sole abortion clinic in North Dakota, meanwhile, will move just a few miles across the river to Minnesota. The physical distance is so close a person could walk it, but the political impact of yet another state without a single provider is immeasurable. Even Reproductive Health Services of Montgomery, the longest-standing abortion provider in the state of Alabama, which had survived more than 43 years of protests, violence, and increasingly hostile state politics, finally succumbed and closed down as well.  Tina Collins hands out ella, an emergency contraception, on July 22. Lucy Garrett for TIME  Dr. Leah Torres meets with a patient receiving an IUD on July 21. Lucy Garrett for TIME  Medical assistant Jessica McKinstry ties balloons outside the clinic for the emergency-contraception fair on July 22. Lucy Garrett for TIME Five days after the decision, West Alabama Women’s Center, too, stopped seeing patients, but only temporarily and [with no intention of leaving](https://time.com/6172950/roe-alabama-abortion-clinic-prepares/). On July 11, 12 days after our last unfinished patient referral and 17 days after our last day of providing abortions, we opened again, this time as a new entity. West Alabama Women’s Center—the for-profit abortion provider established in 1993—was gone. But what came back was West Alabama Women’s Center, a new full-spectrum reproductive-health center dedicated to meeting the needs of the uninsured, underinsured, and Medicaid patients neglected in our region. We are also now a nonprofit, a move that had been in the works for months, because we believe no one should ever be making money off someone else’s health needs. Alabama is already in a health care crisis, with the third highest maternal mortality rate, the fifth highest infant death rate, and the third shortest life expectancy in the nation. An abortion ban will not improve a single one of these numbers, and will only make them worse. But we can, and that’s why we are still here.  Medical assistant Jessica McKinstry Lucy Garrett for TIME  Clinic director Alesia Horton Lucy Garrett for TIME Because the truth is, we can’t go away. While we can no longer provide elective abortions, we need to be here for the newly pregnant single mom who came to us for prenatal care because no doctor would see her until her Medicaid approval came through. We need to be here for the terrified woman in her 50s who showed up [for an IUD](https://time.com/6200542/women-birth-control-switching-methods-abortion/), even though she was near menopause, because she knew a pregnancy at her age would potentially kill her and we have no clear rules on [how “in danger” someone’s life has to be](https://time.com/6194397/abortions-lifesaving-ectopic-pregnancy/) before an abortion is legally allowed. We need to be here for the patient with the ectopic pregnancy who went to the local hospital only to find out they didn’t have methotrexate in stock to terminate that unviable pregnancy. We need to be here for every patient we have seen miscarrying who was turned away by their hospitals even before abortion was illegal here, even before an accusation of “illegal abortion” meant the end of a medical professional’s career at best or a life in prison at worst. --- **We will keep our doors** open for as long as we financially can. Our biggest job now is to make sure that our community knows we are here—that we can be a resource for them to turn to when they don’t have a private doctor, when they don’t want to go to a hospital, and that we can offer them the preventative services that will save them from so many long-term health issues down the road. We’ve made brochures; reached out to all of our local media—we’ve even hosted a pay-what-you-can emergency-contraception fair—all hoping to get to the people who will need us the most. We know that we have three months to become sustainable. We also know that we had seven patients total in our first week—all of whom received health care for whatever they could pay out of pocket. Our likelihood of surviving is slim.  From left, Alesia Horton, Francia Webb, Gail Latham and administrative assistant Kyandria Franklin on July 21. Lucy Garrett for TIME  Buttons at the clinic. Lucy Garrett for TIME  Robin Marty looks out the window to see if their promotion of the emergency-contraception fair brought out any protesters on July 22. Lucy Garrett for TIME If we do shut our doors again, we will do it knowing that we provided the most good we could, for as many people as possible, for as long as we were able, and that we can be proud of that. And we will do it knowing that despite the enduring need in the community, those doors will never open again. ## Transcript Hey, I'm just a big show generations of filmmakers have to pick that the issue of abortion from stories about a legal procedures to perfectly legal and uneventful abortions and even the abortion pill. So following the Supreme Court decision to strike down row. How will a new reality in America begin to make its way onto screens pressure. Goes? Abortion in Phil is not new. Perhaps the earliest example, is the 1916 movie, where are my children in this film? Based on the trial of Planned Parenthood? Founder Margaret Sanger a lawyer Prosecuting, an illegal provider, finds out that his own wife has had multiple abortions, which is rendered her infertile the movie simultaneously. Argues a racist and eugenic point that birth control is important for someone. But that wealthy women who choose abortion or selfish early films, often told cautionary tales depicting. The procedure is traumatic and life up ending, but over the years storylines and movies have begun to evolve to become more compassionate and certainly more accurately display, the varied experiences of women and the realities of abortion. Let me local, okay. My experience with abortions on film is like in European films that scarred me for life, you know, just, you know, like the the did truly the backroom abortion scene work together on the film. Saint Francis, the movie follows a nanny and juxtaposes her taking care of a child during the day while just making the decision to terminate her own pregnancy. A lot of what I had an abortion when I was in my early thirties and all of the TV and install might seem that had to picked it up, orschlens made it seem really scary. And when I went through the actual process I felt relieved. I found the process to be while complicated actually pretty simple. And so I really wanted to show, you know, quote-unquote normal abortion isn't surrounded by traumatic events and that doesn't involve a lot of hand-wringing and doubt and regret but a woman knowing immediately or person know immediately but it wasn't the right time. Today, I found some clothes with fresh blood on them and I just was second, try to hurt herself or her mind. no, I had an abortion, a couple of months ago and I've been bleeding off and on ever since then that's too much. I feel like in must he be in thong. We've seen the woman really spend a lot of time questioning her decision and I'm sure that happens to many women in real life, but it has been a pretty monolithic exploration of doubt in terms of abortion as so. I wanted to show the other version which is I'm pregnant. I'm not going to have this baby because I don't think that either the lack of doubt, the lack of regret. Shonda Rhimes has just been like a complete game-changer for how we portray abortion on network television. Start making decisions about and talking about why it was important to her to be abortion provider and actually the first and then the second show to actually show the full of working procedure on screen and had intentions of managed abortion and see her absolute commitment to this type of Storytelling has I think really open doors for a lot of other writers and content creators who want to include that on network TV. Should be here. I should not be here. Walk down the street in and open the door and Waltz right in and say hello. My name is Veronica, my boyfriend is an asshole. Here's my $500. Elf, I already been on that journey of trying to normalize my own abortion and then this this book came to me and it felt like a perfect way to take the next step and really get to share my perspective, my heart, Rachel Lee Goldberg is the director of unpregnant her film details. The Adventures of a 17 year, old pregnant teen and ex-best friend as they travel from Missouri to New Mexico, to get an abortion idea of of this, not having to be a sad thing and it can just be something with the Central and something that happens is, is really, is, is important, is a perspective, it's real, it's a comedy, but the comedy in the, in the film largely comes from making fun of the journey. And that's, you know, that's how I feel very confident in saying that it's bullshit that these people have to travel this far, to get a procedure. A medical procedure unpregnant was made in 2020, but following the Supreme Court's decision in 2020 to abortions in Missouri are now permitted. Alien cases of medical emergency, there are no exceptions for rape or incest under the law. Abortion is still legal in New Mexico, which is readying to become a destination for women. Seeking care depictions of a board come a long way since the infancy of Hollywood and the institution of the Hays code in 1930, the Hays code was the system of self-censorship for filmed, requiring movies to be wholesome and more. If the character had an abortion in the movie, The Hays code required that they'd meet an unhappy ending, usually characters died, or abandon or ultimately chose not to have an abortion. The Hays code officially ended in 1968. Paving the way for more diverse coverage of abortion. Dirty Dancing continues to be one of my favorite abortion stories, that that is an American film. I just love it because I love it. That the whole plot of the movie is only propelled by tiniest friends, desire to help her, some help support her get an abortion, right? To help pay for the abortion. Help. Cover her day off of work and to help her see that abortion turns out to be dangerous and ends really support or network is really the driving force for the whole film. Is the battle to secure Reproductive Rights ramps up, and individual states. The role that films and TV can play in the battle for public opinion, may be more essential than ever to what comes next. I think, demystifying the process. I didn't know before I went and got a medication abortion, that that was even possible. I assumed it was going to be Surgical and so I think they're probably still a lot of people out there who don't know exactly what an abortion might entail for them. And we wanted to show the process of putting the pills in your cheek and let him know to dissolve and then you might get sick and and the recovery process so that people can feel seen before and the people who might want to see the horses in the future, don't feel scared of speaking for myself. I'm already on to my next for some project deep deep in abortion project number to right now. So you know I'm hoping that other people will be compelled to do the same you know, as as artists and filmmakers are people in Media. More and more specific stories, which I think is the trend that were seeing already. But I hope this lights of fire and, you know, maybe those storytellers who have stories to tell their sugar burning inside. You're compelled to tell them now, we're already seeing it, but I'm I'm, I'm excited for that next stage of of stories to be told. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6200914/alabama-clinic-after-roe-v-wade/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6200914/alabama-clinic-after-roe-v-wade/"},"headline":"An Alabama Clinic Reinvents Itself for a Post-Roe World","datePublished":"2022-07-28T11:00:51.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:38:27.178Z","description":"When abortion became illegal in Alabama, West Alabama Women’s Center relaunched as a nonprofit reproductive health center.","url":"https://time.com/6200914/alabama-clinic-after-roe-v-wade/","keywords":["abortion","freelance","nationpod"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Robin Marty","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/robin-marty/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/abortion/","name":"abortion"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6200914/alabama-clinic-after-roe-v-wade/","name":"An Alabama Clinic Reinvents Itself for a Post-Roe World"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"A History of How Abortion is Shown in Film and Television","description":"TIME explores abortion and how it's covered across media; from films that tell cautionary tales and depict the procedure as life-upending to more compassionate pieces that portray the varied experiences of women.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Ca77dTts/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2022-07-05T15:12:18.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Ca77dTts.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6200914/alabama-clinic-after-roe-v-wade/","duration":"PT8M41S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6200914/alabama-clinic-after-roe-v-wade/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```