State-Level Abortion Laws Decimating Abortion Industry
State laws that push back against the abortion industry are having an impact, according to a new report.
The pro-abortion Abortion Care Network recently reported that due to the action of what it terms “hostile states,” the number of independent abortion providers in America is tumbling.
The report said that Planned Parenthood’s network of abortion clinics is responsible for 37 percent of the unborn children killed through abortion, but that 58 percent of abortions are through independent abortion clinics. The remainder procedures are performed through hospitals and doctor’s offices.
But, the report notes, “independent clinics are closing at an unprecedented rate: the number of independent clinics in the US has been reduced by over 32 percent since 2012.”
The report said that as of 2012, there were 510 independent abortion clinics, a number that is now reduced to 344. The report noted that 85 percent of the clinics that closed in 2018 and 2019 performed abortions after the first trimester of pregnancy.
The Abortion Care Network points the finger at pro-life politicians for the decline.
“Anti-abortion politicians have long used onerous restrictions to try and shut down independent abortion providers,” Nikki Madsen, executive director of the Abortion Care Network, told CBS News.
“Since 2010, anti-abortion politicians have passed more than 400 laws that attempt to make it too expensive or logistically impossible for abortion clinics to operate,” she said.
Elizabeth Nash of the Planned Parenthood-affiliated Guttmacher Institute admitted pro-life forces have been winning at the state level, according to ABC News.
“For the past nine years, there has been a concerted legal strategy by anti-abortion politicians in the South, the Plains and the Midwest to limit access to abortion and close abortion clinics,” she said. “The report underscores just how difficult it is to protect abortion services.”
In several states, independent providers are the sole source for abortions, the report said. Independent clinics are the only providers in Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Dakota and West Virginia. In Arkansas, Nevada, Oklahoma and Georgia, independent providers are the only ones who perform late-term abortions.
Some legislators have said the battle to fight abortion is far from over.
“The time for regulating evil and compromise is over,” Republican Rep. Candice Keller of Ohio’s House of Representatives said, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
Keller is sponsoring a bill that would ban virtually all abortions in her state.
“The time has come to abolish abortion in its entirety and recognize that each individual has the inviolable and inalienable right to life,” she said.
In Florida, the state is debating a bill requiring that parents consent to a minor’s abortion, according to the Miami Herald.
The law was proposed by Republican state Sen. Kelli Stargel.
Stargel recalled being “an unwed teenager who was pregnant” who considered but rejected abortion.
“When I told [my mother] I wanted to have my child, she supported me,” Stargel said.
Democratic state Sen. Lauren Book opposed the bill.
“Abortion still happens — it always will happen,” Book said. “But something really scary happens when you create restrictive laws on abortion access, when you put young girls and women in a desperate position. Abortion gets pushed into the shadows and it becomes very, very dangerous.”
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