How Beyoncé and Taylor Swift Concerts Helped Chicago Abortion Providers Prep for the DNC
CHICAGO — Qudsiyyah Shariyf learned a very expensive lesson last June when The Eras Tour came to town. The deputy director of the Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF) needed hotel rooms for people traveling from other states to get abortions and availability was extremely limited, thanks to Taylor Swift’s three-night swing. The fund spent more than $30,000 on hotel rooms for about 30 abortion seekers over three days.
While fans can put travel dates on their calendars and plan ahead, people don’t plan to need abortions. “For so many people we support, it is a one-week or two-week turnaround. It's not months out,” Shariyf told Jezebel.
So ahead of Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour the following month, CAF booked 10 additional hotel rooms for potential last-minute patients (on top of the rooms it booked for people with already-confirmed appointments). It did the same thing to prepare for the Democratic National Convention this week, an event that brought 50,000 people to the city.
“In a lot of ways, we're used to seeing really expensive airplane tickets” for people who need a last-minute flight, Shariyf said, “but especially with an event like the DNC, the hotel costs are really impacted.” Taxi and rideshare costs are also higher, and traffic can affect people’s ability to get to their appointments on time since one of the clinics CAF works with, Family Planning Associates, is in downtown Chicago.
Allison Cowett, MD, medical director of Family Planning Associates (FPA), told Jezebel that the owner of their building got extra security for this week in case there was an influx of anti-abortion protestors. But FPA kept its hours the same because “seeing patients is what we do, whether the DNC is here or not.”
The clinic recognizes that it’s harder to travel around the city during the convention and other gridlock-causing events. Unlike most doctors’ offices, Cowett said they’ll see patients even if they arrive late—even if it's a "regular" day when Beyoncé isn't in town. “It doesn't matter if you live on the west side of Chicago or in Houston. I don't know what you went through to get here. If we have any capacity whatsoever, like the nurse anesthetist hasn't gone home yet, I want to take care of you because I don't know if you're going to be able to come back,” Cowett said. “We're really trying to get as many people the care they need as we can.”
And the clinic is indeed seeing people from Texas and beyond. Before Dobbs, it was common for FPA to treat patients from Indiana and Wisconsin; about 12 percent of their patients were from out of state. Now it’s close to 30 percent, Cowett said. More than 37,000 people traveled to Illinois for abortions in 2023, per the Guttmacher Institute—and that was before Florida’s six-week ban took effect, a devastating blow for access in the Southeast. Even more people are set to travel this year, and abortion funds and practical support groups like CAF help make those trips possible. (Shariyf said many CAF clients coming to Illinois have never been on a plane before. “We have resources that are for first-time flyers, like ‘How does the airport work?’” she said. “So many of our staff have been on the phone with someone helping them navigate O'Hare.”)
While more planning and communication were required for this week, both Cowett and Shariyf welcome the attention the DNC is bringing to abortion access. Yes, abortion is legally protected in Illinois, but Shariyf said meeting the demand from abortion seekers is impossible without investment from grassroots donors all the way up to state government.
Cowett said that, as an abortion provider, she was thrilled the convention was in Chicago and planned to talk to whoever would listen about the importance of the election. “There's a very clear choice between expansion of rights and vast, even unknowable restrictions that could come from the other side,” she said. Adding that she felt it was “an opportunity to highlight the ‘abortion is healthcare, abortion is a necessity, abortion is life-saving’ message.”
Shariyf added, “I think it's disingenuous to put forth Illinois as a haven for reproductive health if we're not ensuring that anyone regardless of how much money they make and whether they're an Illinois resident or not can get support here,” she said. “I’m really hopeful that the eyes on Chicago with the DNC will continue to uplift Illinois as a model, and also point to what more we need to do.”
Clinics like FPA are trying to stay afloat as they see an influx of patients at the same time that national groups, like the National Abortion Federation, are decreasing funding assistance for abortions. One move that would make a difference is insurance plans paying providers more for their services. Cowett said 70 percent of their patients are from Illinois, and 80 percent of those people have Medicaid for insurance.
Illinois state Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D), chair of the legislature’s Reproductive Health and the Dobbs Decision Working Group, helped codify abortion protections into state law in 2019. But she said the fight is far from over and she'll make a push in the next legislative session to raise the amount of money state Medicaid pays to clinics for abortions, also known as reimbursement rates. She’s also looking at the long game to pass expansive protections that don’t ban care for people who need abortions later in pregnancy. “Ultimately, my vision is there are no limits on abortion,” Cassidy told Jezebel. “This is healthcare.”
One of the reasons Shariyf said that CAF partnered with Planned Parenthood’s mobile clinic in Chicago this week was to show politicians and delegates what access can and should look like. “Mobile clinics or brick-and-mortar clinics should be in every community and provide a full spectrum of care,” she said. ”Abortion is normal, vasectomies are normal, emergency contraception is normal, and we should all have access to that. And it should be free.”
Shariyf said that, as candidates and groups talk about restoring access at the federal level, they can’t forget about people who need abortions in the short term. “We're seeing these long-term strategies and five- and 10-year plans, which are great,” she said, but "we need to be real about what's needed now.”
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