The Guttmacher Institute, formerly a branch of the abortuary Planned Parenthood, issued a whiny report on Thursday, 100 days after the Supreme Court’s life-affirming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. That decision overturned the ghastly Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade (and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which the high court affirmed Roe).
The institute found
that 100 days after the June 24 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, 66 clinics across 15 states have been forced to stop offering abortions.
Prior to June 24, these 15 states had a total of 79 clinics that provided abortion care [sic]. As of October 2, that number dropped to 13….
That means there are no providers currently offering abortions in 14 or 15 states.
Guttmacher researchers focused on the 15 states that were enforcing either total or six-week abortion bans as of October 2, and complained:
In the 13 states that had implemented total abortion bans as of October 2, all clinics were forced to stop offering abortions. In two other states, Wisconsin and Georgia, the situation is precarious.
From the point of view of the institute, that situation is going to become much more precarious: “Our state legislative tracking predicts that a total of 26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion within a year of Roe being overturned.”
This, in their eyes, is an unmitigated disaster:
The 14 states where abortion is currently unavailable accounted for 125,780 abortions in 2020.
Individuals who can no longer obtain an abortion from a clinic in these states are now forced to travel to another state for abortion care (facing additional direct and indirect costs associated with travel logistics, child care and time off work), self-manage their abortion or continue their pregnancy (and accept the significant associated health risks).
And this is just the beginning:
Much more research will need to be conducted to grasp the full extent of the chaos, confusion, and harm that the US Supreme Court has unleashed on people needing abortions, but the picture that is starting to emerge should alarm anyone who supports reproductive freedom and the right to bodily autonomy.
On the other hand, pro-life supporters are celebrating the lives that are being saved in those 15 states. Said the Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, those present and expected bans against abortion murder “are estimated to protect as many as 200,000 unborn children annually.”
This is a long way from the more than 900,000 babies being murdered in their mothers’ wombs across the country every year, but it’s a good start. Complained one abortionist in Indiana: “It is precarious from a medical standpoint and certainly from a business standpoint. It’s difficult to keep the doors open and the lights on when you don’t know if you’re going to be a felon tomorrow.”
