NEW ORLEANS, La. (AP) – An abortion-rights group based in New Orleans has launched a billboard campaign to bring attention to what they say is a threat to abortion access for women in Louisiana.
Women With a Vision has put up hot pink billboards that read “Abortion Access” in the three remaining cities in the state with abortion clinics – New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport planning to rally in New Orleans Wednesday as the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a challenge to the constitutionality of a Louisiana law regulating abortion.
Louisiana’s three remaining clinics, which include Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, field phone calls from anxious pregnant women who call to ask if abortion is still legal and if the clinics are still open.
Despite protests, threats and repeated restrictions put upon abortion providers in this staunchly anti-abortion state, the clinic stands.
Abortion remains legal in Louisiana and elsewhere in the United States, but Wednesday’s Supreme Court case could lead clinic closures and, more fundamentally, a retreat from protecting the right to abortion that the Supreme Court first announced in 1973.