76 Abortion Businesses Have Closed Since Dobbs, Saving Countless Babies
The 2022 Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade and with it the right to abortion under our Constitution. We’ve written a great deal about the decision’s impact—primarily by Dr. Randall K. O’Bannon, Director of Education & Research—but not as much as we should about the independent abortion clinics.
These are clinics that are not affiliated with the abortion behemoth Planned Parenthood. Yet they provide “approximately 58 percent of all abortions nationwide,” according to the latest report from the Abortion Care Network.
The title is “Communities need Clinics: There is no access without Independent Abortion Care Providers.”
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They emphasize that they go into hostile—pro-life—territory:
In addition to providing the majority of abortions in the U.S., independent providers operate the majority of abortion clinics in the states that are most politically hostile to abortion.
The 35-page report emphasizes that Independents (“indies) took a disproportionate hit from Dobbs.
Independent clinics have long been more vulnerable to anti-abortion attacks intended to close clinics or push abortion out of reach; therefore, indies were disproportionately impacted by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the flood of abortion bans that followed. With over half the states in the US banning or severely restricting abortion and fourteen states lacking a single abortion clinic, access to abortion care in many parts of the United States has been decimated. In states where clinics remain open, maintaining even a basic level of abortion access depends on independent clinics keeping their doors open and continuing to provide expert, patient-centered care.
Probably not one percent of the public, or even pro-lifers, know that Independents perform the overwhelming percentage of late-term abortions:
Access to abortion care throughout pregnancy has depended on independent abortion clinics for decades, and this remains true. Even after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, independent clinics make up 62 percent of all US clinics that provide abortion after the first trimester† Independent clinics represent 67 percent of all clinics that provide care at and after 16 weeks of pregnancy, 71 percent of clinics providing care at and after 19 weeks of pregnancy, and 88 percent of clinics that provide care at or after 22 weeks of pregnancy After 26 weeks of pregnancy, the only clinics that provide abortion care are independent. [Underlining added.]
The point of the report is that Dobbs dealt Independent abortion clinics a devastating blow:
Abortion Care Network identified 76 Independent abortion clinic closures between 2022 and 2024. Forty-two independent clinics closed in 2022, and 23 clinics closed in 2023. As of November 2024, there have been 11 confirmed independent clinic closures in 2024
However, from the Network’s perspective, there was some good news:
While the overall legal and financial landscape remains hostile to a thriving independent clinic sector, a number of clinics have been able to open since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Between 2022 and November 2024, Abortion Care Network confirmed that at least 32 new independent brick-and-mortar clinics have opened in 10 states.
There is a caveat:
Some of these new clinics are run by providers who were forced to close in one state and then moved or opened a new location in another state.
The report is worth reading for its brevity and for its insight in how non-Planned Parenthood clinics—lacking PPFA enormous resources and political influence—are faring in the post-Dobbs world.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.