Record abortion clinic closures impact red and blue states

[jpak]

Source: Christian Science Monitor

A Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado reopened last week, months after a gunman killed three people and wounded nine at the clinic, angry at the abortion services provided there.

That the clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., reopened at all makes it something of an oddity. Abortion providers across the US are closing at a record pace, according to data analysis from Bloomberg Businessweek, and the closures are not limited to the conservative states that have been passing regulations – the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Texas's controversial House Bill 2 next week – over when and how abortions can be carried out.

Since 2011, 21 abortion providers have opened, while at least 162 have shut or stopped offering the procedure, Bloomberg reported. Both supporters and critics of abortion attribute the decline to a range of factors, from high operating costs and reduced demand, to the rise of strict state regulations. And both sides say the abortion debate in America is reaching a seminal moment.

The vast majority – 94 percent – of pregnancy terminations are conducted in stand-alone clinics, as opposed to hospitals or doctor's offices. The number of these facilities that perform 400 or more abortions a year has dropped from a peak of 705 in the late 1980s to 553 in 2011, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a think-tank that supports reproductive rights.

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Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2016/0225/Record-abortion-clinic-closures-impact-red-and-blue-states

[matt819]

1. I'm not sure how you obtain reliable stats

But it will be interesting in the coming couple of years to see a number of things.

Number of abortions nationally.
Number of abortions in states that are not seeking to return to the middle ages.
Number of women injured or killed from back street or do it yourself abortions.

In particular, I'd be interested in how these stats, and others, impact on red state women and, more specifically, red state Republicans.

One of the many idiocies here is that abortions are down generally, and that in states where it is relatively easy and safe to get an abortion, and to obtain reliable, truthful information, the numbers are down even more. So the throwbacks are - what a shock - more likely to hurt their own families and constituencies.

[CTyankee]

2. Improvements in contraceptive choices also play a role...

20 years ago we did not have the array of contraceptives that we have today. And Planned Parenthood does an excellent job of educating young women on their options. Also, if a woman has an abortion at a PP center, she is counseled on birth control as part of the visit and given pills if she chooses it.