About 60 percent of abortion clinics in 11 states with near-total or “heartbeat” abortion bans in place have shut down in the month since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, according to a report released Thursday.
The numbers come from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, which was once part of abortion giant Planned Parenthood (via Axios):
By the numbers: The 11 states that Guttmacher looked at — Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas — had a total of 71 clinics that provided abortion care before June 24.
As of July 24, there were only 28 clinics offering abortions, all located in the states that have six-week abortion bans (Georgia, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee), Guttmacher found.
The report pointed out that Texas had the most amount closures, 23 total. Alabama and Oklahoma each lost five abortion clinics and Oklahoma lost 2. Three states with one abortion clinic remaining before Roe was overturned now have zero.
Mississippi, Missouri and South Dakota — all of which had "trigger" laws that took effect shortly after the court's decision — each had one abortion clinic, and they have all shut down.
Townhall covered this month how Mississippi’s last abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, closed its doors for good after a judge denied its request to block a pro-life trigger law from taking effect in the state. JWHO was the abortion clinic in the Supreme Court case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which resulted in Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey being overturned. As Townhall noted, JWHO plans to set up shop in New Mexico.
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Also moving to New Mexico is Whole Woman's Health, a chain of abortion clinics, with several in Texas.
Whole Woman's Health was at the center of lawsuits last year challenging Texas' "heartbeat" abortion ban, which outlawed the procedure after fetal cardiac activity was detected. The "heartbeat" law, S.B. 8, was blocked by an Obama-appointed district judge about a month after it took effect. Whole Woman's Health, who challenged the law, quickly resumed abortions before the law was put back into effect later that same week.
The United States Supreme Court fast-tracked two hearings for the case, Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson and United States v. Texas, which challenged the six-week ban. Both cases were heard on Nov. 1.
In the Supreme Court's ruling a month later, the justices allowed the law to stand. A separate case brought forth by the Department of Justice over the Texas law was shot down by the Court.
Days later, SCOTUS officially returned the abortion clinics' case back to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana. The case was heard by the Fifth Circuit in January. It then made its way to the Texas Supreme Court.
On Whole Woman's Health's website, the organization is asking for financial support to pack up their operations and move to New Mexico. The goal is $750,000. As of today, it has raised about $270,000.
"Opening a brick and mortar clinic site in New Mexico, where we already offer Virtual Services, will allow us to provide first and second trimester abortions to people from Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and elsewhere in the South where safe, legal abortion care is restricted," the organization's GoFundMe page states. "In addition, New Mexicans are also going to struggle with access as their local clinics book up with patients traveling from out-of-state."
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