Planned Parenthood will offer free vasectomies and abortion medication at this week’s Democratic National Convention to highlight the importance of abortion rights and family planning as an election issue this year. 

According to the New York Times, the mobile clinic will be set up at the Wiener’s Circle near Chicago’s lakefront on Monday and Tuesday for DNC attendees. 

“Here we come, Chicago! Planned Parenthood’s mobile health clinic will be in the West Loop with Chicago Abortion Fund (@chicagoabortionfund) and The Wieners Circle (@wienerscircle) on Monday, August 19, and Tuesday, August 20, providing FREE vasectomies and medication abortion,” Planned Parenthood Great Lakes wrote in an instagram post. “Emergency contraception will also be available for free without an appointment.”

The Times reported that the demand for free vasectomies is so high that the organization has had to move to a waiting list for those seeking the procedure. 

The Great Lakes division of Planned Parenthood serves much of southwestern Illinois, which borders states like Iowa and Missouri that have implemented restrictions on abortion rights since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. A spokesman for Planned Parenthood Great Lakes did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The issue of abortion has been an electoral and fundraising boon for Democrats since the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 decision, and could help buoy vulnerable lawmakers in November, just as the issue did in the midterms less than two years ago.

“There’s a direct through line between what Donald Trump did and loss of access to abortion care,” Senator Smith told the Times. “That’s one of the reasons why people are seeing this in a kind of completely different frame than they were even just four years ago.”
Despite the party’s heavy focus on protecting the right to an abortion and Vice President Harris’s promise to suspend the filibuster to codify Roe, voters seem more focused on pocketbook and national security issues this year. According to a CBS News poll released Sunday, Americans list the economy, inflation, and the southern border as being far more important in deciding their vote than the abortion issue.