Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Rewire.News has tracked attempts by anti-abortion state officials to exploit the crisis to roll back reproductive rights. For some states, it’s taken a week or longer to get an answer as to whether clinics were able to continue providing abortion care.

If our expert journalists are struggling to get this information, patients in those states must find it nearly impossible to keep up.

We’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: These concerted efforts to suspend abortion rights are designed to confuse people and take away their reproductive agency. What is especially disgraceful about this latest assault on reproductive rights is that we ended up where we started. Meanwhile, patients and their loved ones are left scrambling to make costly schedule adjustments to access health care. This episode is a stark reminder of just how fragile these rights are.

For continuing coverage of how COVID-19 is affecting reproductive health, check out our Special Report.