#i-55

Billboards supporting women seeking abortions are popping up along I-55 heading north

"People make mistakes," says Queen, a Memphis hairstylist whose clients often confide those mistakes in her. [ ... ] Today, Queen says distance has become the biggest hurdle to getting the procedure in the southern United States. Hundreds of miles and multiple state lines can separate women from providers, which is why she's an enthusiastic proponent of a new abortion-rights billboard campaign along one stretch of rural Interstate 55 running across eastern Arkansas from Memphis, Tenn., to Southern Illinois. "Yes!" she shouts when she sees the first billboard, which reads "GOD'S PLAN INCLUDES ABORTION." [ ... ] The new billboard is one of six paid for by Seattle-based Shout Your Abortion. Its founder Amelia Bonow says this route in particular — leading to the only legal providers within hundreds of miles — needed a counterpoint to the billboards opposing abortion. "I-55 is just covered with these hateful, judgmental, shaming, intentionally traumatizing anti-abortion billboards," says Bonow of why the group focused on this segment of highway. Some anti-abortion rights billboards invoke the Bible. Others, like those placed by Minnesota-based Pro-Life Across America, have pictures of smiling babies and a phone number. [ ... ] "That's what these laws do," contends Bonow. "They don't actually stop people from having abortions, but they make people struggle in order to have abortions." Other Shout Your Abortion billboards say "Abortion is okay," and "Abortion is normal, you are loved." Some former abortion providers now offer what are called "navigational services." Ashley Coffield, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi, says for some young clients living in poverty it's their first time ever traveling beyond the city limits. "We're handing out gas cards," she says. "We're making hotel arrangements. We're buying plane tickets, train tickets, bus tickets, whatever works best for the individual. We're meeting them where they are."

In the days of slavery Illinois was a North Star of freedom and featured many stops along the Underground Railroad. Since the Dobbs decision it has assumed a somewhat similar role for reproductive freedom.

Interstate 55 runs from New Orleans to Chicago. Illinois is the only state along I-55 which offers reproductive freedom.

Some times I remember I drove 1200 miles from Texas to Illinois in a shitty pickup truck without a working clutch, radio, or secured cargo tarp with nothing but $200 in cash, a cancer-ridden dog who'd had a seizure 3 days prior, no cell phone, and an mp3 player loaded up with audio ripped from West Wing episodes.

Internally, I called it my "character building" road trip.

Driving Home

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Having spent most of her life in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, Sara Cortes learned to live with bad-smelling air that created a haze in the summer.

About a year ago, Cortes, 38, was diagnosed with an untreatable lung condition that makes her tired and leaves her short of breath.

So she was shocked when she learned of a fast-moving plan in Springfield to expand the nearby Stevenson Expressway, part of Interstate 55, with additional lanes, bringing more traffic and more pollution.

“It’s definitely a concern for me,” said Cortes. “The air quality in Little Village has been bad for a long time.”

Introduced at the tail end of the Illinois legislative session, a pair of measures that promote private funding of road projects are moving through quickly as state lawmakers try to wrap up their session this week. One is a resolution that would allow state transportation officials to find private funding for the Stevenson expansion, which runs through Little Village and other communities, and it is in the Senate after moving quickly through the House Chamber. The other is an even more expansive rewriting of rules to encourage private dollars for state transportation projects, which was added as an amendment to a large spending bill on Friday.

“Expanding highway capacity will incentivize more driving and more harmful emissions in an area already burdened by high asthma rates and other chronic health problems,” said José Miguel Acosta Córdova of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.

Community, environmental and health organizations oppose the 11th-hour moves to bring private highway funding to Illinois, proposals supported by labor and business groups.