Double the amount of independent abortion clinics closed in 2022 compared to 2021 since the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, according to Bloomberg, which cited a report from the Abortion Care Network (ACN).
By November, 42 independent abortion clinics closed, mostly in the South and Midwest, compared to 20 clinic closures in 2021. The report noted that independent clinics provide 55 percent of abortions nationwide.
“There are several reasons for clinic closures; in 2022, the overturning of Roe v. Wade was the clearest and most immediate,” according to the report.
The ACN report stated that “abortion clinics have been closing at an alarming rate with independent abortion care providers most likely to be forced to close.” ACN considers a clinic closed if it is closed entirely or if it is open but no longer aborts unborn babies.
The ACN began tracking clinic closures in 2012 and identified 510 open independent abortion clinics in the U.S. By November 2022, that number went down to 434 independent clinics, 333 of which are actually brick-and-mortar clinics.
“While there have been a surge of independent, online-only clinics since 2020 and a handful of brick-and-mortar clinic openings over the years, the overall number of brick-and-mortar independent clinics in the U.S. has decreased by 35 percent since 2012,” according to the report. “Since 2017, Abortion Care Network has identified 133 independent abortion clinic closures. Seventeen independent clinics closed in 2017; 13 closed in 2018; 27 closed in 2019; 14 closed in 2020; 20 closed in 2021.”
ACN found that 14 states have no abortion clinics — a “direct result” of the Supreme Court’s decision to send the issue of abortion back to the states.
“Since Abortion Care Network began tracking independent clinic status in 2015, there has never been a state without at least one clinic,'” the report states.