The woman boarded a plane in Wisconsin this summer, pregnant and alone.

She hadn’t planned for another baby and couldn’t afford one. Her relationship with her partner had frayed, she said, and she feared becoming homeless.

“I was super depressed. I was so broke with no job, though I must have sent out 100 applications,” said the 29-year-old woman who declined to be named to protect her safety. She never told her family that she flew to Maryland for an abortion.

Thousands of people a year make such a trip to the state for abortions, with a brief spike to 8,210 in the year after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 2022, which left the right to an abortion up to individual states.

The numbers have since leveled off, with 2,770 in the first six months of this year, according to estimates from the Guttmacher Institute, a research and abortion rights advocacy group.

But many of those who do come can’t manage the trip or pay for the abortion on their own. The number asking for help has soared, according to Abortion Fund of Maryland officials.

The story continues at The Baltimore Banner: Thousands travel to Maryland for abortions, but support is stretched thin

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