For the first time in the organization’s history, Planned Parenthood of Montana has announced plans to establish a Bozeman clinic that will provide abortion services, a move that would expand the state’s options for where people can terminate pregnancies.
Currently, the organization has clinics in four major Montana cities — Great Falls, Helena, Missoula and Billings — where they offer a range of services, including prescribing medication for abortions earlier in pregnancy. But the nonprofit only offers in-clinic abortions for patients at two of those locations: Missoula and Helena. Other abortion providers — Blue Mountain Clinic and All Families Healthcare — also offer medication and procedural abortions in Missoula and Whitefish.
Advocates for abortion access have long pointed to Bozeman, one of Montana’s fastest-growing communities, as a gap in the statewide map of services.
In a Tuesday press release, Planned Parenthood of Montana said offering in-clinic abortions in Bozeman “is essential in meeting the needs of patients in Montana, and those forced to travel as care is banned in the region.” The location is slated to open sometime in the first half of 2027, according to the release.
Abortion in Montana is legal and constitutionally protected up to the point of fetal viability following the passage of CI-128 in 2024. Access is less secure in surrounding states, with Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota and South Dakota toggling back and forth with various restrictions and limited clinic access since the federal right to abortion was overturned with the end of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
According to the most recent data from the #WeCount study collected by the Society of Family Planning, overall abortions in Montana have ticked slightly up since 2022. Medication abortions offered via telemedicine have increased, part of a national trend. But the majority of abortions across the country continue to happen in person, according to the data.
Planned Parenthood of Montana said Tuesday it has raised $1.5 million toward its $2 million goal to construct the Bozeman location, and will launch another $1.5 million fundraising effort to support future clinic needs.
In a phone interview with Montana Free Press, Planned Parenthood of Montana’s CEO and president, Martha Fuller, said she expects renovations to convert the Bozeman building into a medical clinic to take between six and nine months. When the facility opens, Fuller said, staff will aim to immediately begin offering all medical services, including in-clinic abortions.
Given the recent surge in national challenges to mifepristone, one of the primary drugs used in medication abortions, Fuller said having the capacity to provide in-clinic, procedural abortions “is really important.”
Fuller declined to specify where the Bozeman facility would be located, citing concerns about potential harassment and interference with the contractors on site. She said contractors hired by Planned Parenthood of Montana experienced harassment years ago after water damage affected one of its clinics in Billings, ultimately prompting the contractor to quit.
For now, Fuller described the Bozeman facility as being located on a public bus route and a “pretty major road.” She said it will be “close” to the Montana State University campus and within a 30-minute drive of the Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport.
Fuller acknowledged that there may be public pushback to the group’s announcement. In a Facebook post Sept. 1, the MSU chapter of Turning Point USA, which opposes abortion, said news about the new clinic and its rumored proximity to the university “raises serious concerns” about Planned Parenthood of Montana’s accessibility to “vulnerable college students facing unexpected pregnancies.”
Among other groups and services for pregnant people, the TPUSA chapter’s post shared contact information for ZoeCare, a crisis pregnancy center with free services that counsels patients against abortions. ZoeCare is located about a mile west of MSU’s campus.
“No woman should ever feel like abortion is her only option,” TPUSA’s post read.
Fuller said her organization has spent years building support for the new clinic among donors and other locals, after initially exploring Bozeman locations in 2020. The resulting plan for a 2027 opening shows that Bozeman residents are ready to support the new facility, Fuller said.
Opponents, she added, “don’t speak for the community very much at all.”
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