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162 clinics have either closed or stopped offering abortion since 2011
Next week, the Supreme Court will be hearing arguments for Whole Women’s Health v Hellerstedt, a case out of Texas that will determine if states will be allowed to enact back-door bans on abortion by passing a bunch of unmeetable and unnecessary regulations that force clinics to shutter. Even if the court overturns the Texas law that forces clinics to build hospital-style operating rooms and have admitting privileges at local hospitals (neither regulation makes abortions safer), the rash of anti-abortion legislation across the country has already done its damage.
As Bloomberg News reports, 162 clinics have closed or stopped offering abortion since 2011, and only 21 have opened. That’s a huge problem, because there really aren’t that many clinics to begin with. (Guttmacher counts fewer than 2,000 to handle the over 1 million abortions a year.) To make things worse, the clinic closures tend to be more concentrated in red states, which means that there are some places in this country where women simply can’t get an abortion if they need one.
In Texas, the restriction requiring clinics to have hospital admitting privileges has already gone into effect, halving the number of clinics in the state. The impact has been devastating. The remaining clinics are now having to handle way more patients than they are equipped to handle, forcing women in areas like Dallas, Ft. Worth, and Austin to wait up to three weeks to get an abortion. Women in rural areas, especially in the west, are even worse off. Researchers in the state found that women are having to travel hundreds of miles, taking time off work and paying for hotel rooms, just to get an abortion. In some cases, the expense is too great and they are simply forced to have a baby, which is an immense burden on someone who can’t afford travel to get an abortion.
No wonder there are reports that the number of women trying to self-induce abortions are going up.
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/25/abortion_access_is_vanishing_clinics_are_closing_at_a_rapid_pace_and_shameless_conservative_legislators_are_gunning_for_whats_left/
As Bloomberg News reports, 162 clinics have closed or stopped offering abortion since 2011, and only 21 have opened. That’s a huge problem, because there really aren’t that many clinics to begin with. (Guttmacher counts fewer than 2,000 to handle the over 1 million abortions a year.) To make things worse, the clinic closures tend to be more concentrated in red states, which means that there are some places in this country where women simply can’t get an abortion if they need one.
In Texas, the restriction requiring clinics to have hospital admitting privileges has already gone into effect, halving the number of clinics in the state. The impact has been devastating. The remaining clinics are now having to handle way more patients than they are equipped to handle, forcing women in areas like Dallas, Ft. Worth, and Austin to wait up to three weeks to get an abortion. Women in rural areas, especially in the west, are even worse off. Researchers in the state found that women are having to travel hundreds of miles, taking time off work and paying for hotel rooms, just to get an abortion. In some cases, the expense is too great and they are simply forced to have a baby, which is an immense burden on someone who can’t afford travel to get an abortion.
No wonder there are reports that the number of women trying to self-induce abortions are going up.
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/25/abortion_access_is_vanishing_clinics_are_closing_at_a_rapid_pace_and_shameless_conservative_legislators_are_gunning_for_whats_left/
1 replies
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