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According to an analysis, at least 66 clinics in 15 states have stopped providing abortions since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.
The number of clinics providing the procedure in the states has fallen from 79 on June 24, the day of the decision, to 13 on October 2, the Guttmacher Institute found.
Each of the 13 remaining clinics is located in Georgia. The Peach state prohibits the procedure after the sixth week of pregnancy.
Abortion rights across America were plunged into chaos after the Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June.
The Supreme Court ruled that the federal right to abortion was not recognized in the constitution, overturning the landmark Roe ruling in 1973.
After the decision, trigger laws that prohibit or restrict the procedure went into effect in more than a dozen states.
There are restrictions or outright bans on abortion in 16 US states. In five other countries, possible abortion blocks are blocked by state courts. One state was not included in the Guttmacher report.
Abortion is restricted or outright banned in 16 red states of the US, mostly concentrated in the south of the US
“Much more research will need to be done to understand the full extent of the chaos, confusion and harm the US Supreme Court has unleashed on people who need abortions,” said Rachel Jones, a Guttmacher researcher.
“But the picture that is beginning to form should alarm anyone who supports reproductive freedom and the right to physical autonomy.”
The new report does not include data on hospitals and doctors’ practices that performed abortions and discontinued them after the court’s ruling.
Jones noted that clinics offer most abortions in the US, including procedures and the provision of abortion medications.
Recent data from Guttmacher, a New York-based abortion rights group, shows that just over half of American abortions are done with drugs.
There were more than 800 abortion clinics nationwide in 2020, the institute said.
Abortion rights activists believe the Roe ruling will not change the raw number of procedures performed each year.
Instead, they fear that women in restricted states will have to travel long distances across the country to where it is allowed.
There are also concerns that women who do not have legal access to procedures will turn to dangerous “back alley” procedures.
Before the Roe ruling, an estimated 200 women per year died from complications caused by unsanctioned abortions, experts warn.
States without abortion providers are concentrated in the South.
In some of those places, many women who want to have abortions would have to travel so far that the trip will be impossible, Jones said.
dr. Jeanne Corwin, who provides abortions in Indiana and Ohio, said clinic closures “will cause immeasurable damage to women’s physical, mental and financial health.”
Access is threatened in several states because bans were only temporarily suspended by court order.
These include Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
“It’s precarious from a medical standpoint and certainly from a business standpoint,” said Dr. Katie McHugh, an OB-GYN who performs abortions in Indiana.
“It’s hard to keep the doors open and the lights on if you don’t know if you’ll be a thug tomorrow.”
Planned Parenthood, one of the largest reproductive health nonprofits in the US, is launching mobile abortion clinics to reduce barriers to entry.
It announced that a first mobile clinic will be launched in southern Illinois in the coming weeks.
The abortion truck will remain within Prairie state borders, but close to the Missouri and Kentucky borders — both of which have significant restrictions.
It hopes to minimize travel time for women in the two states in hopes of getting the procedure.