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

‘Feels horrible to say no’: abortion funds run out of money as US demand surges

A lifeline for many in states with abortion restrictions, abortion funds are being pushed to the brink due to rising costs and a drop in donations

Carter Sherman
Fri 22 Sep 2023

Laurie Bertram Roberts never expected Americans to keep forking over money to pay for other people’s abortions. But the abortion fund director didn’t think it would get this dire.

When the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, people donated tens of thousands of dollars to Roberts’ organization, the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, which is dedicated to helping people afford abortions and the many costs that come with it. But, in August, Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund had to stop funding abortions. It’s now closed until January 2024.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/22/us-abortion-funds-run-out-of-money-demand-surges

‘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 – Abortion access advocacy groups slam bill allowing women to be charged with homicide

The bill goes against Alabama’s 2019 law, which expressly states that women who obtain abortions are not to be prosecuted.

By JACOB HOLMES
May 15, 2023

When Alabama passed legislation in 2019 to criminalize abortions in the state, Republicans were clear: the women receiving abortions were not to be criminalized.

But just a year after Roe v. Wade was reversed, Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, R-Trinity, has introduced a bill, HB454, doing just that, eliminating a section in the homicide code preventing prosecutors from charging women for homicide for having an abortion.

Continued: https://www.alreporter.com/2023/05/15/abortion-access-advocacy-groups-slam-bill-allowing-women-to-be-charged-with-homicide/

She was one of Alabama’s last abortion doctors. Then they came for everything she had

Dr Leah Torres has endured the ire of the anti-abortion movement without backing down – but now she faces her most daunting challenge

by Poppy Noor
Wed 22 Mar 2023

Dr Leah Torres doesn’t tell people what she does when she meets them, which makes it hard to make friends. She removes her name from every piece of trash before she puts it out for recycling, in case people walking past see her name and find out where she lives. If a package addressed to her arrives on her porch, she calls everyone she knows to identify who sent it before she opens it – it could be a bomb.

Once, coming back from work in the piercing August Alabama sun, she noticed a gray sedan parked in her driveway. Instinctively, she fled to a neighbor’s house – she barely knew him – but asked if he could walk her home anyway. The car turned out to be a stranger’s; the driver had just pulled over to send a text message. “Still, you never know,” says Torres, her big, almond-shaped eyes conveying concern.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/22/alabama-last-abortion-doctor-leah-torres