The 11 Planned Parenthood facilities in Indiana are fully booked for abortion appointments until the state’s abortion ban takes effect on August 1.

The Indiana Supreme Court last month upheld a near-complete ban on abortion after a contentious legal battle since its passage in August 2022.

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Abortion in the Hoosier State is, in the meantime, legal up to 22 weeks gestation, the status quo since Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union filed for an emergency injunction to block the new law.

The number of abortions in Indiana has risen by over 2,000 since 2020, with 9,529 abortions conducted in 2022. By comparison, the Indiana Department of Health reports that there were 78,616 live births in the state in 2020.

The 22-week cutoff point for abortion has made Indiana a prime location for abortion tourism, especially from abortion-seekers in more restrictive neighboring states.

Nearly 20% of abortions, or a total of 1,827, in Indiana in 2022 were performed on out-of-state residents. In 2020, only 384 abortions were performed on out-of-state residents.

Of those conducted in 2022, 611 were from Ohio and 950 were from Kentucky, both of which have been enforcing near-total abortion bans since July 2022 and February 2023, respectively.

Ohio abortion rights activists were successfully able to add a constitutional amendment codifying abortion rights to the ballot in November after submitting over 700,000 signatures to add the initiative, more than double the required amount.

Neither Ohio nor Kentucky have exceptions to their total abortion bans for rape or incest.

Although the Indiana law allows for exceptions to the abortion ban for up to 10 weeks, Planned Parenthood and other operating abortion clinics will no longer be permitted to perform the procedures. The law instead requires legal abortions to be conducted in hospitals or ambulatory outpatient surgical centers.

A unique argument using Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act could still be used to strike down the state’s abortion ban in certain cases.

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The ACLU filed an additional lawsuit against the ban in September 2022, arguing that not all religions and non-religious individuals believe that life begins at conception. Any law requiring a woman to carry a pregnancy to term against her will, according to the ACLU, is tantamount to compelled speech in support of life beginning at conception.

Even if this lawsuit were to be validated by a court when it is decided later this summer, the abortion exception would only be applicable to those with sincere religious beliefs on First Amendment grounds.