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RESIDENCY REQUIREMENT. For most women, however, obstacles are still abundant. Thirty-three states retain century-old laws making abortion a crime unless performed to save the life or, in a few instances, protect the health of the pregnant woman. In Utah, some lawyers interpret the law to hold that it may even be a crime to help a woman obtain an abortion elsewhere. Abortions are all but impossible to obtain in such states as New Jersey, Iowa and the Dakotas, difficult at best in Massachusetts, much of the South and Middle West. Women in Idaho, which has one of the toughest anti-abortion laws in the country, must cross the state line into Oregon. Women throughout the Southwest travel to California. Some go even farther. Though few women seem interested in going to Alaska, at least 500 mainlanders are known to have taken advantage of Hawaii's liberal attitude and resort atmosphere.
New York's approach is the most permissive of all because it has no residency requirement (though elsewhere, the provision can often be evaded). The nation's abortion capital is now New York City, where 200,000 women have had abortions performed in the past 15 months, more than 120,000 of them from out of state. This influx has posed surprisingly few problems for the city's medical services. "Freestanding" abortion clinics, prompted by a mixture of medical free enterprise and altruism, have taken a large part of the burden from the city's established hospitals. Women rarely have to wait more than a few days for an outpatient procedure. Doctors now report that 81% of the aborted pregnancies in New York are of less than twelve weeks' duration.
Out-of-state abortion seekers are not limited to New York City. Detroit Manufacturer Martin Mitchell, for instance, has established a clinic near Niagara Falls, N.Y., and has arranged a thrice-weekly charter flight to bring women there from cities in the Middle West. Others arrive by car. His venture has been booming, to the extent of 175 cases a week. Mitchell, who advertises his clinic on billboards, has even hired a plane to tow a huge airborne sign over Miami Beach. Once he planned airborne abortions, to be performed in a circling jetliner, but he could not find doctors willing to cooperate. Most women find his charge of $400 a bargain. It includes the round-trip flight from Detroit, ground transportation to the clinic, and lunch.
Yet even in the liberal states, women are frequently forced to travel. Hospitals in some upstate New York communities still refuse to allow abortions. When the California law first took effect, hospitals in the northern part of the state were willing to go along more quickly than in relatively conservative Southern California. Kansas and Colorado have virtually identical statutes; yet an abortion is far more easily obtained in Kansas than in Colorado. Reason: Kansas courts have given doctors great leeway in evaluating the physical and psychological impact of an unwanted pregnancy; Colorado courts have given doctors there very little.