A new abortion clinic opened in Danville in February. Reporter Laura Morel with the investigative radio show Reveal spent six months following the clinic’s owner, Kelly Flynn. Flynn already owns other clinics in Florida and North Carolina, two states where lawmakers have restricted abortion access.
Flynn told Morel that the expansion came with some trepidation and anxiety, as more states in the South move to restricting abortion access. In 2022, After Tennessee banned abortion, a clinic in Bristol crossed state lines to open in Virginia, and almost immediately, it faced legal challenges and protests.
Much of the opposition in Bristol was led by the Family Foundation of Virginia, an anti-abortion group based in Richmond.
“The thing that makes Virginia interesting right now is the fact that it’s the only state in the South with the widest access to abortion care across the South since Roe has been overturned,” Morel told with Roxy Todd. “So the landscape of abortion access in the south has been shrinking, and Kelly’s been having to navigate all of this.”
She was there on opening day of the clinic. “The waiting room was full. I know that some of the patients were from other parts of the south. Just being there opening day really gave me a sense of the need that there is for this kind of medical care in the south.”
Click here to listen to more of Laura Morel’s reporting about the Danville clinic, which is called A Woman’s Choice.
Morel is a reporter with the radio show and podcast Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting.
