Vans Not Bans

Very soon, your nearest abortion clinic might not have a real address or a phone number or a front door. But it could have an engine and wheels. Cosmo takes the first in-depth look at a top secret fleet of mobile clinics steering the future of abortion care.

You’re having an abortion today—that much you know. The pregnancy is about 7 weeks along, and you've booked an appointment for a vacuum aspiration procedure. It'll be quick, simple, and safe. Five minutes, tops. You're just not exactly sure where the appointment will be, because the clinic is motoring down a highway somewhere, just like you are.

Abortion is now almost entirely banned in your home state of Louisiana, so you and your best friend had to hit the road yesterday, taking turns driving through miles of swampy Southern wetlands before stopping overnight in the Texas Panhandle. You're about to cross into eastern Colorado, the Rocky Mountains rising into view, and soon, your phone will buzz with a call directing you to your confidential destination: a seemingly random parking lot just over the state line. That’s where you'll find an unmarked van waiting for you—a fully operational abortion clinic, hiding in plain sight.

It’s clear—from studies and from the lived experiences of pregnant people throughout time—that abortion restrictions do literally nothing to reduce the need for abortion. That’s why Minnesota nonprofit Just the Pill is racing to meet rising demand with something that’s never been done before: converting ordinary

commercial vans into a fleet of specially equipped mobile clinics that can roam where and when they're needed in order to perform first-trimester abortions on the DL.