Trust Women OKC Offering New Services After Overturn Of Roe V. Wade

A former abortion provider in southwest Oklahoma City will begin to see patients again; but the reason for their visits will be different than before.

Throughout the last eight months, the people behind the Trust Women Clinics have been back at the drawing board to figure out ways they can still serve their community.  

To start, they'll offer two services with one of them being a lawmaker's new target for this legislative session.

Since June, Trust Women has held onto the corner of Southwest 44th and Blackwelder.

"When providers leave the community it leaves a gap, it leaves a space," Trust Women's Clinic Director Kailey Voellinger explained.

The former abortion providers have not been able to perform the procedure after trigger laws banned abortions statewide after Roe was overturned.

The only exception is to save the pregnant person's life. So, for the last eight months Voellinger said they've worked to find out what gaps they can fill.

"We know that people who use drugs as well as gender diverse people, trans people have kind of a difficult relationship with the medical system," Voellinger said.

The two services, gender-affirming and transitioning care and opioid treatment use, are the first two services they plan to roll out in April.  

Gender-affirming care can be as simple as using preferred names and pronouns.  

Later, Voellinger said, they plan to add services like STI screens, HIV and Hepatitis C treatments, along with things like pap smears and inserting or prescribing birth control methods. One reason it took almost a year to come up with the plan, it was hard to find practitioners.

"Part of the challenge is finding medical providers who want to work in Oklahoma. It's a very difficult state to provide care in. The types of care people need are heavily regulated," Voellinger explained.

Their opioid treatment plan is a low barrier buprenorphine clinic. It's a prescribed treatment that can be taken at home, and the clinic will also not have some protocols and regulations other higher barrier treatment plans do.  

Trust Women's other initial service, gender care, may be on borrowed time.

"What's really scary moving forward this legislative session, there's over 15 bills targeting trans people and gender diverse people, particularly around how the way care is provided and who it can be provided to," Voellinger said.  

She added, "it's something we're keeping a really close eye on."

Two bills that surround gender care were heard at the state Capitol on Wednesday. 

SB 613 and SB 129, both passed through the Senate Rules Committee.