USA – A Single Abortion Clinic Closing Rarely Makes Headlines. What Happens When None Are Left?

Four years after Dobbs, the quiet shutdown of independent abortion clinics has become a nationwide crisis—leaving 14 states with zero clinics and countless communities without any nearby, in-person reproductive care.

July 8, 2026
by Erin Grant, Ms. Magazine

Picture a map of the United States. It’s 2022, and in southern states like Texas and Tennessee, there are clusters of black dots that represent independent clinic closures. These are abortion care black holes: communities where it’s no longer possible to get an abortion at a nearby clinic.

Fast forward to present. It’s 2026, four years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, and black dots have multiplied in states across the country. It no longer matters if the state is red or blue governed by conservatives or progressives. None are immune to the increasing weight of political pressure, financial strain and operational difficulty that are forcing independent clinics to close or stop providing abortion care. Each of these black dots is a community suffering a healthcare crisis, and they are proliferating across the United States at a rapid rate.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2026/07/08/abortion-clinic-closures-dobbs/

08.07.2026

Commentary

Abortion Care Network

abortion clinic closures

Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization

Three abortion rights defenders share their stories of hope

Amnesty International
By Cécile Yougbare, SRHR activist with Médecins du Monde, Kinga Jelińska, activist from Poland and Erin Grant, Abortion Care Network Co-Executive Director 
10 March 2026

Across the world, governments and other actors are rolling back on decades of progress on gender equality, including access to abortion. But people are fighting back, determined to protect the rights so many have fought so hard to achieve.   

As the Commission on the Status of Women holds its 70th session, three courageous human rights defenders from Burkina Faso, Poland and the United States share their strategies to protect access to abortion, their hopes for the future and the reasons why they believe that, despite the many increasing challenges, humanity must always win.

Continued: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2026/03/three-abortion-rights-defenders-share-their-stories-of-hope

USA – Planned Parenthood CEO warns budget bill could devastate group and slash abortion access in blue states

Alexis McGill Johnson says nearly 200 health centers could close if US House passes sweeping tax-and-spending bill

Carter Sherman
Wed 2 Jul 2025

Planned Parenthood stands to lose roughly $700m in federal funding if the US House passes Republicans’ massive spending-and-tax bill, the organization’s CEO said on Wednesday, amounting to what abortion rights supporters and opponents alike have called a “backdoor abortion ban”.

“We are facing down the reality that nearly 200 health centers are at risk of closure. We’re facing a reality of the impact on shutting down almost half of abortion-providing health centers,” Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Federation of Americas’s CEO, said in an interview Wednesday morning. “It does feel existential. Not just for Planned Parenthood, but for communities that are relying on access to this care.”

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/02/planned-parenthood-abortion-ban-trump-bill

02.07.2025

Commentary

Abortion Care Network

Alexis McGill Johnson

funding for abortion

Maine Family Planning

Report finds independent abortion clinics face more threats, decline post-Dobbs

It’s a tough time to run an abortion clinic.

By Caroline Catherman
December 11, 2024

In May 2023, a man drove a car through a future reproductive health clinic in Danville, Illinois. He arrived with bottles of gasoline, a hatchet, road flares, and matches with plans to set it on fire, authorities reported.

While no one was harmed, the clinic, Affirmative Care Solutions, hasn’t been able to open.

Affirmative Care Solutions Director LaDonna Prince said this is just one example of growing hostility toward her shrinking profession.

Continued: https://www.healthcare-brew.com/stories/2024/12/11/report-independent-abortion-clinics-more-threats-decline-post-dobbs

11.12.2024

Abortion Care Network

Affirmative Care Solutions

Communities Need Clinics

EMW Women’s Surgical Center

funding for abortion clinics

USA – ‘Perfect storm’ of crises is leading to cutbacks in abortion care, advocates say

By: Kelcie Moseley-Morris and Sofia Resnick
August 14, 2024

Advocates for abortion access say compounding crises of abortion bans, rising economic costs and systemic health care issues are beginning to cause significant funding challenges and potential disruptions to reproductive care of all kinds.

Several people described it as a “perfect storm” of problems with the U.S. health care system, particularly post-pandemic, and the rise of abortion bans and other reproductive care restrictions in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022. Many individuals must now travel hundreds or thousands of miles to seek abortion care, and the consolidation of demand at a smaller number of clinics is increasing wait times, which means pregnancies progress to a more advanced stage and the costs balloon further.

Continued: https://alaskabeacon.com/2024/08/14/perfect-storm-of-crises-is-leading-to-cutbacks-in-abortion-care-advocates-say/

14.08.2024

Commentary

Abortion Care Network

Abortion Fund of Ohio

abortion funds

barriers to abortion

Brittany Fonteno

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Erin Grant

Florida Access Network

Keep Our Clinics

Lexis Dotson-Dufault

Lisa Humes-Schulz

National Abortion Federation

National Network of Abortion Funds

Nicole Clegg

Oriaku Njoku

patient assistance funds

Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Planned Parenthood Great Northwest

Planned Parenthood of Greater New York

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England

Project 2025

Stephanie Loraine Piñeiro

The Abortion Pill Underground

Since Roe was overturned, thousands of people in red states have found a way to get an abortion—often thanks to providers operating at the edge of the law.

AMY LITTLEFIELD
May 7, 2024

When Kay found out she was pregnant at the end of last year, she knew three things clearly. “I was poor and I had an unwanted pregnancy and knew I couldn’t afford a standard abortion for hundreds of dollars,” she told me. A 29-year-old student already raising one child, Kay lives in Texas, where abortion is banned. The nearest clinic she could find was at least a 12-hour drive away. But Kay thought there might be another option. “I went to Google and started searching if it was possible somehow to receive abortion pills through the Internet.”

It was not only possible; it was much easier and more affordable than Kay had expected. She found online services that offered to ship the same medications that were available in clinics right to her doorstep in Texas for $150 or, if she couldn’t afford that, for free. It seemed so simple that Kay thought it might be a scam. “I was scared I would wait for the pills and they wouldn’t work when I got them,” she said.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/telehealth-abortion-shield-laws/

07.05.2024

Commentary

Abortion Care Network

Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine

abortion funds

abortion pills

abortion pills by mail

Abuzz

Aid Access

Center for Reproductive Rights

Choices Women’s Medical Center

in-person requirement

Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline

National Network of Abortion Funds

self-managed abortion

shield laws

Susan Yanow

telemedicine abortion

18 Months After “Dobbs,” Here’s How Abortion Providers and Activists See Things

Abortion funds and logistical support groups are enabling people to travel out of state to obtain abortion care.

By Eleanor J. Bader , TRUTHOUT
December 28, 2023

After the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs decision eviscerated the already limited federal right to abortion, 14 states — Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia — banned the procedure.

In some of these states, clinics closed. According to The Guardian, 42 U.S. clinics shuttered in 2022, plus 23 more in 2023. But as disturbing as this is, it is not the full story. Despite financial, legal and political obstacles, many clinics in states that have banned abortion have pivoted, continuing to provide essential reproductive health services such as contraceptives, STI testing and treatment, and routine gynecological exams, with some expanding to deliver prenatal and gender-affirming care. In addition, new clinics have opened in states like Wyoming and Maryland where abortion remains legal.

Continued: https://truthout.org/articles/18-months-after-dobbs-heres-how-abortion-providers-and-activists-see-things/

Dozens of independent abortion clinics closed in 2023 post-Roe, study finds

Twenty-three ‘indie’ clinics closed this year, leaving over a dozen states without a brick-and-mortar clinic that provides abortions

Ava Sasani
Tue 5 Dec 2023

Dozens of independently owned reproductive health clinics shuttered in 2023, the year after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, according to a new report from the Abortion Care Network.

The group found that 23 independently owned clinics closed this year, on top of the 42 that shuttered in 2022, leaving over a dozen states, mainly in the American south and midwest, without a single brick-and-mortar clinic that provides abortion.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/05/us-abortion-clinics-close-after-roe-overturned

05.12.2023

Research

Abortion Care Network

independent abortion clinics

Katie Quinonez-Alonzo

Robin Marty

West Alabama Women’s Center

Women’s Health Center of West Virginia

‘It’s Breaking My Heart’: Abortion Providers on Life After Roe

For many abortion providers, working in a clinic isn’t just a job—it’s a calling. But clinics are businesses, too, and in the 15 states that have banned almost all abortions, business has been turbulent.

Carter Sherman, VICE
June 28, 2023

Kathaleen Pittman was too angry to retire.

Pittman had worked at Hope Medical Group, one of the last abortion clinics in Louisiana, for thirty years. She’d started there as a part-time counselor in 1992; by 2022, she was running the place. She’d gone to the Supreme Court to defend her clinic and won, successfully striking down a Louisiana abortion restriction in 2020.

Two years after that victory, she watched as the Supreme Court dismantled her life’s work by overturning Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. She went back to court to try and fend off Louisiana’s cascade of abortion bans, but a month after the overturning, the clinic had to close. Louisiana had outlawed nearly all abortions.

Continued: https://www.rsn.org/001/its-breaking-my-heart-abortion-providers-on-life-after-roe.html

USA – Why an independent abortion clinic is suing Planned Parenthood

Melissa Jeltsen with photographs by Thalía Juárez
Tue 6 Jun 2023

In a sign of tensions within the abortion rights community, a Manhattan clinic alleges the reproductive health behemoth poached one of its doctors, bringing it to the ‘point of implosion’

Parkmed NYC, an independent abortion clinic on the east side of Manhattan, is located in a nondescript office building that also houses the Ecuadorian consulate. Five days a week, the clinic is flooded with patients, many of whom have traveled long distances by bus, train or plane to evade abortion bans in their home states.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/abortion-clinic-suing-planned-parenthood

06.06.2023