Nearly two dozen independent abortion clinics closed in U.S. between January and October

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (KT) – An annual report released by Abortion Care Network, the national association for independent abortion providers, discussed the impact of abortion bans on clinic closures nationwide in 2023.

Independent abortion clinics — providers that are not private physicians’ offices, hospitals or Planned Parenthood — represent about 24% of all facilities offering abortions, but provide around 55% of all abortion procedures in the U.S.

According to data from the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research and policy organization, these independent providers also operate 60% of abortion clinics in states that are politically hostile to abortion access.

Out of all U.S. clinics that provide abortion after the first trimester of pregnancy, independent clinics represent 61% of the total. Additionally, the report found that “independent clinics represent 61 percent of all clinics that provide care at and after 16 weeks of pregnancy, 67 percent of clinics providing care at and after 19 weeks of pregnancy, and 86 percent of clinics that provide care at or after 22 weeks of pregnancy.”

One hundred percent of abortions after 26 weeks gestation are provided by independent clinics.

Abortion Care Network (ACN) reported 139 clinic closures between 2018 and 2023; twenty-three of those closures occurred between January and October 2023.

Kentucky’s only independent abortion clinic, EMW Women’s Surgical Center, stopped providing abortions in 2022 when the state’s abortion ban was enforced following the fall of Roe v. Wade. The building was placed on the market for sale in May 2023, but the clinic stated in a Facebook post: “EMW remains open and the business is not for sale.”

ACN started tracking clinic closures in 2012, at that time identifying 510 brick-and-mortar facilities nationwide. That number dipped to 489 independent clinics in October 2023, 346 of which are brick-and-mortar clinics. The number of brick-and-mortar facilities in the U.S. has dropped by 32% since 2012.

Other findings of the study include:

• More than a year after the Supreme Court gutted Roe v. Wade, 14 states have no clinics providing abortions.
• Independent abortion clinics are more likely to offer both in-clinic abortions and medication abortions (73% of independent clinics vs. 42% of Planned Parenthood facilities).
• Independent providers operate 100% of telemedicine-only clinics.
• Clinics that closed in 2022 and 2023 were concentrated in the Midwest and South (75% of overall closures).
• More than 50 laws restricting access to abortion were enacted in the studied time period in 2023.

Read the full report here.