How a small town in Kansas found itself at the center of abortion’s national moment
A new abortion clinic has brought the debate over reproductive rights to a small college town in the southeast corner of Kansas
PITTSBURG, Kan. (AP) — The Rev. Anthony Navaratnam stood before his congregation and urged them to pray for the women from surrounding states who will flock to the new abortion clinic in town that opened in August.
“God is giving us an opportunity to be missionaries in Pittsburg, Kansas,” he told those at Flag Church, which hosted a training on how to protest outside of the clinic.
The debate over reproductive rights has landed in this college town of 20,000 in the southeast corner of one of the few states left in the region still allowing abortions. It is near Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas and not terribly far from Texas.
A place this size, especially one in a historically red state, was unlikely to have an abortion clinic before Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Since then, Kansas has become one of five states that people are most likely to travel to in order to get an abortion when they're unable to at home, said Caitlin Myers, an economics professor at Middlebury College who researches abortion policies.
