April Matson drove her companion more than nine hours to a Colorado clinic to seek an abortion a few months after South Dakota outlawed the practice last year.
Matson had her own abortion at that clinic in 2016, so the trip brought up painful emotions. The single mother of two had to sleep in a tent outside a horse pasture since she was too poor to stay in a hotel despite her severe injuries and bleeding.
Matson, like many other Native Americans, has had a hard time obtaining an abortion. With the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the situation has worsened.
More than a quarter of the Native population lives in poverty, and new restrictive state laws add to the existing obstacles of a decades-long ban on most abortions at clinics and hospitals run by the federal Indian Health Service, fewer nearby health centers offering abortions, vast rural expanses, and high rates of homelessness.
Matson, a Sicangu Lakota who resides in Sioux Falls, remarked, “That’s a lot of hurdles.” We are a marginalized group, and this further marginalization is oppressive.
South Dakota, Oklahoma, Montana, and North Dakota are four of the seven U.S. states with the greatest percentage of Native American and Alaska Native population, and all have moved to ban abortion or are set to do so. Both South Dakota and Oklahoma have outright bans on it.
