New Maryland clinic opening in post-Roe ‘abortion desert’

By LEAH WILLINGHAM
Associated Press

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A new Maryland abortion provider is opening next to deeply conservative West Virginia, where state lawmakers recently passed a near-total abortion ban. The Women’s Health Center of Maryland in Cumberland will open in June. The nonprofit facility is opening a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections. It will provide abortions to patients across central Appalachia. Clinic operators say the region is an “abortion desert.” The clinic will be the only independent and western-most provider in the state of Maryland that offers surgical and medical abortion and gender-affirming hormone therapy.