Thanks to damaging legislation being passed in states across the U.S., abortion clinics nationwide are closing at the fastest rate since abortion became legal in 1973, denying many women, particularly those living in rural areas, access to not only abortions, but even to basic reproductive or maternity care.
Since 2011, 162 clinics in the US have closed, while only 21 new clinics have opened, thanks to new laws that change requirements for a private clinic, making it impossible for them to stay in business. Most of those clinics that closed were in Texas, in which 30 were forced to close by new laws. In second place, Iowa, with 14 closed. Michigan is right behind with 13 clinics closed, and surprisingly, California has seen 12 close, despite being led by pro-choice Democrats.
According to Bloomberg Business, “Stand-alone clinics, not doctors’ offices or hospitals, perform the vast majority of pregnancy terminations,” which makes it that much easier to specifically target abortion providers with legislation that counteracts women’s already legal right to terminate a pregnancy.
This disproportionately affects poor and rural women for whom these closed clinics were their only access to medical care, period. These women often can’t afford to travel to clinics and hospitals farther away. According to Jezebel:
19 percent of the closures happened in counties with less than 100,000 people and that 30.5 million women of reproductive age live within 25 miles of the now-closed clinics. As of 2011, there were only 553 abortion clinics in the U.S., as opposed to 705 in 1980 (according to the Guttmacher Institute).
The thing is, it’s not just women’s clinics that are being shut down, but also maternity wards in hospitals that are underfunded and forced to close. Because apparently, “pro-life” means that you don’t care about safely bringing wanted children into the world? NPR reports that:
Each year, about 500,000 women in the United States give birth in rural hospitals, yet easy access to labor and delivery units has been declining. Though comprehensive figures are spotty, a recent analysis of 306 rural hospitals in nine states with large rural populations found that 7.2 percent closed their obstetrics units between 2010 and 2014.
This isn’t just about abortion. If it were, maternity wards wouldn’t be closing. It’s about women not being a priority at all. It’s infuriating. And it must be fought against with everything we have.
(image via Steven Depolo/Flickr)
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