When news broke earlier this month of the leaked United States Supreme Court draft majority opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, many New Yorkers braced themselves for the worst.

Though abortion rights advocates had been preparing for this potential reality for years, the news that the country’s landmark 1973 case that legalized abortion throughout the country might be dismantled as soon as June was a startling blow for many.

“What was presented in the draft opinion is one of the scenarios that we were anticipating, but it is the most devastating,” Becca Asaki, New York organizing manager for the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, said.

In the last two weeks, calls and emails, as well as donations, from people looking to support the work of abortion rights advocates have spiked.

They say the influx of activity speaks to how the leaked draft opinion is creating fear, even in New York, a state considered a haven for abortions rights.

“People see that we are not safe from the long reach of Republicans,” Katie Finnigan, an organizer with NYC For Abortion Rights, said.

The number of people from out of state expected to seek abortion care in New York, where abortion is legal at up to 24 weeks of pregnancy and after 24 weeks if your health is at risk or your pregnancy will not survive, is predicted to skyrocket, according to experts.

In 2019, 9%, or 7,000 of the abortion procedures performed in New York were for people from other states, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. That number is expected to increase by four and a half times to 32,000 a year from Ohio and Pennsylvania residents alone, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights advocacy group.

New York City in 2019 became the first city in the country to allocate municipal funds directly for abortions. About a third of the roughly 600 people served by these funds are from out of state, according to Councilwoman Carlina Rivera, who was a key player in establishing this abortion access fund.

Each year, the city allocates $250,000 to the fund. Rivera said she’s pushing to increase that number.

“Hopefully, people will know New York City's a place they can come to as a safe haven, as a place that has directly funded these programs and services and we have to continue to get that message out to so many others,” Rivera, who sponsored the bill that passed last December that requires the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to make emergency contraception and long-acting reversible contraceptives like intrauterine devices available at its health centers, clinics and other health facilities, said.

Brigid Alliance is an organization that funds and arranges travel for people who have to go long distances to access the nearest available abortion provider.

The New York City-based organization started offering its services in 2018, helping people to travel to the city for abortion procedures according to Odile Schalit, the executive director of the organization.

In the past week, the organization received 1,500 donations and hundreds of emails from people looking to volunteer, she said.

They’re used to a flurry of activity whenever news of restrictive legislation is passed, like Texas’ “heartbeat bill,” which passed last fall. But Schalit says this spike is more than they’ve experienced.

“This time, it's definitely bigger, it's definitely greater because people value abortion access, they value women, they want to see Roe be preserved, or others want to see something stronger than Roe be upheld,” Schalit said.

They started out helping roughly 20 to 40 people traveling to New York City each month, but now help up to 125 people each month traveling across the country, with about half of their clients coming from southern states where abortions are less accessible, Schalit said. 

The average cost of funding for each client they serve is $1,000, she said.

Their staff coordinators help people build itineraries including arranging flights, bus or train tickets, and cash for gas. They book lodging, and send stipends for meals and even child care. 

“Any and all of the things that someone logistically faces when they're having to travel an average of 1,000 miles to get to their nearest provider, which is the case for our clients,” Schalit said.

Organizers and advocates are keeping security in mind as they continue their work because states such as Missouri are considering proposals that would allow private citizens to sue anyone who provides an abortion, including abortion pills, to a Missouri resident or otherwise “aids or abets” a pregnancy termination. 

“It has definitely been something we've been devoting more time and money and energy to over this last year in preparation for what's to come, especially with the creative minds coming out of Missouri and the types of bans that are being threatened there,” she said.

It means people who work at Brigid Alliance generally keep their identities concealed and stay on top of their digital security, including using encrypted messaging apps. It also means monitoring mentions of any of their volunteers or staff online.

Other organizations are operating in a similar way. 

“We try to not put our full names out as much and cover our faces when we go just because [anti-abortion activists] do try to sometimes dox people just to intimidate us into not doing clinic defenses any longer,” Niharika Rao, who organizes with NYC For Abortion Rights, said.

New York lawmakers are considering proposals that would protect New Yorkers providing care or helping arrange care, and people seeking to get abortion care in the state. 

“Since this horrendous decision was leaked, people have been really creatively looking at all the scary ‘what ifs,’ saying, ‘This is coming. What can New York to be ready, to be prepared to welcome refugees from states that are outlawing abortion?” said state Sen. Liz Krueger, who sponsored the 2019 Reproductive Health Act and is currently sponsoring a bill to codify an equality amendment to the state’s constitution. This would ensure a platform of rights from pregnancy termination to gender identity for New Yorkers.

In a statement response to NY1's questions about how anti-abortion activists plan on mobilizing in response to New York’s efforts to increase access for those who live in other states, Mary Carroll, vice president of communications for Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group, wrote: “Shame on lawmakers who are doubling down on more abortion instead of life-affirming help for women. Long gone are the days of ‘safe, legal and rare’ – now they would turn their states into a destination for traffickers, all to prop up the abortion industry.”

Krueger introduced a bill last Friday, alongside Assemblymember Charles Lavine, which would protect providers by prohibiting law enforcement agencies in New York from working with law enforcement agencies from other states on abortion-related investigations.

While Krueger admits there isn’t anything New York lawmakers can do to protect people back in their home states, she is pushing to strengthen laws that would protect people while they are in New York, including their private health information.

Though HIPAA law provides protections for medical information, Krueger said she wants to take those protections even further.

“We want to make sure that as long as you are providing health care services within your scope of practice in the state of New York, it is completely irrelevant where your patient might have as her primary residence,” she said.