How one quiet Illinois college town became the symbol of abortion rights in America

[ShazzieB]

CARBONDALE, Ill. – The 26-year-old had never heard of the distant southern Illinois town, but it had become the closest option. So she cobbled together money. Found child care. Asked her brother for a ride. And set off early one morning to drive north across state lines to 22,000-person Carbondale.

It was a nearly seven-hour round trip from her home in Tennessee. Long enough for the decision to rattle in her head as the flat Midwestern landscape slipped by the car windows. No, she told herself. I thought it out. It's not the right moment to have a child.

*snip*

From there it was another hour’s drive to the outskirts of Carbondale, a place often reached by a two-lane state highway that winds by farm fields and churches or a busier route dotted with fast food, strip malls and a building on which, for a time, hung a banner reading, “Pro Life. Pro God. Pro Gun. Pro Trump.”

Mostly rural, conservative southern Illinois was an unexpected place for an abortion clinic, the 26-year-old thought, even if the town’s welcome sign noted it was home to Southern Illinois University.

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2023/06/04/carbondale-illinois-abortion-clinics/70180040007/

Cross-posted to Illinois

[Martin Eden]

1. Carbondale is a college town -- Southern Illinois University

I went to school there late 70's - early 80's, and fell in love with Shawnee National Forest. Great hiking with sandstone bluffs, waterfalls, fantastic rock formations. Look up Farden of the Gods illinois. Giant City State Park is close to Carbondale.