Planned Parenthood mobilizes for Democratic convention in Chicago

A sign hangs above a Planned Parenthood clinic on May 18, 2018, in Chicago. / Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images

CNA Staff, Aug 19, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

Planned Parenthood is offering free abortions and vasectomies to residents and visitors in Chicago as the 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC) kicks off in the city’s downtown.

Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, which dispenses abortion and contraception in southern Illinois, said on social media last week that it was traveling to Chicago and performing free abortions and sterilization procedures in a mobile van.

“Here we come, Chicago! Our mobile health clinic will be in the West Loop with [the Chicago Abortion Fund] & [the Wieners Circle] Aug. 19-20, providing FREE vasectomies & medication abortion,” the abortion provider posted on X. 

Emergency contraception “will also be available for free without an appointment,” the organization said.

The West Loop neighborhood is just several minutes from the United Center where the DNC will be hosted this week. The Wieners Circle, meanwhile, is a long-running Chicago hot dog restaurant that has spoken out in favor of abortion on social media.

The response to the free abortions and sterilizations was evidently overwhelming. On Saturday the Planned Parenthood affiliate posted on Twitter that “all free vasectomy and medication abortions are filled for our mobile health clinic in Chicago.”

Long a plank of the Democratic platform, the Democratic Party this year has made support for abortion a major campaign issue. This will mark the first presidential election since Roe v. Wade was repealed in 2022. 

Earlier this year the DNC pledged to devote more than $8 million to advancing abortion this election cycle, vowing to spend “millions to build up infrastructure across the country and help elect Democrats up and down the ballot” in order to protect abortion. 

Also this summer, Democrats signaled their intent to repeal the 150-year-old Comstock Law, which forbids the sending of abortion drugs through the U.S. Postal Service. 

That law has effectively gone unenforced for roughly 50 years following the Roe decision in 1973, but Democrats have expressed fear that a Republican White House could use the law to restrict mailed abortifacients post-Roe.

Presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, meanwhile, is a staunch proponent of abortion, having signed a law as governor of Minnesota to codify “a fundamental right” to abortion in the state, even for minors. 

The Minnesota governor also signed legislation that scaled back legal protections for infants born after a failed abortion attempt in that state.