Just 100 days after the end of abortion as a constitutional right, at least 66 abortion clinics have stopped offering abortion services, a new Guttmacher Institute analysis finds. The data show how quickly the landscape has changed for women and people with uteruses across the nation.
Tracking clinic closures
For their analysis, Guttmacher focused on the 15 states enforcing 6-week or total abortion bans by October 2. In 13 states with total bans, all clinics had stopped offering abortion. In two additional states with 6-week ban, abortion remained mired in uncertainty, and clinic services were extremely limited.
In 2020, the states in which abortion is currently unavailable accounted for more than 125,000 abortions, suggesting at least this many women will be impacted by the clinic closures.
The ripple effect of these closures extends to other states, which now bear the brunt of the abortion burden. Waits at abortion clinics have skyrocketed, forcing many patients to seek out later procedures that cost more and require a longer recovery time. One recent analysis found clinics booking out at least three weeks.
Researchers also found that a total of 26 states stand poised to ban abortion, suggesting the situation will grow more dire.
What happens to women and families when clinics close?
It should come as no surprise that when clinics close, access to safe and legal abortion declines.
The data also suggest that closing clinics doesn’t stop abortion—and that restrictive abortion laws could actually increase later abortions. In Latin American nations, banning abortion has resulted in an abortion rate significantly higher than in the U.S., not to mention skyrocketing rates of suicide among women and girls.
Clinic closures kill women.
And then those clinic closures are due to abortion bans, things grow even more dire.
Criminalizing abortion criminalizes female bodies.
Elective abortion is critical to society-wide well-being, with research showing it saves women’s lives, improves almost every measure of well-being, and improves men’s economic prospects, too. But you don’t have to want an abortion to benefit from abortion laws.
Abortion access ensures women don’t die when their babies do.
It prevents miscarriages from becoming death sentences.
And it allows people whose babies are already doomed to die to make the decision that is right for their family.
Every miscarriage is a potential abortion. Every period is a potential miscarriage. And now, everyone who gets a period is a potential criminal.