Seven States are Almost Abortion Free and Have Just One Abortion Center Left

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Aug 14, 2019   |   7:23PM   |   Washington, DC

Seven states have just one abortion facility left as abortion numbers drop to historic lows across the United States.

Abortion facilities have been closing at a rapid pace the past decade. Abortion activists blame pro-lifers for passing laws that protect unborn babies and mothers, while abortion facilities themselves mention a lack of abortion patients and doctors willing to do abortions as reasons for them shutting their doors.

This week, the Catholic News Service identified six states where only one abortion facility remains in business: Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia.

In Missouri and Kentucky, legal battles involving health and safety problems at their last facilities could end abortions completely in their states. However, judges have blocked the states from closing the facilities for now.

Other states, including Mississippi and North Dakota, recently passed pro-life laws that could shut down their last abortion facilities as well. However, judges blocked both the heartbeat law in Mississippi and the dismemberment abortion ban in North Dakota, allowing the facilities to continue their deadly practices there, according to the report.

A seventh state, Wyoming, also has just one abortion facility left. In 2017, Vice News reported that Emerg-A-Care in Jackson is the only facility in the state that provides abortions. LifeNews could not find any evidence of another abortion facility opening since then. However, LifeNews discovered that abortion facilities, including notorious late-term abortion facilities in neighboring Nebraska and Colorado, appear to be targeting Wyoming women through online advertising.

REACH PRO-LIFE PEOPLE WORLDWIDE! Advertise with LifeNews to reach hundreds of thousands of pro-life readers every week. Contact us today.

The declining abortion rate may be one of the biggest reasons so many abortion facilities are closing. Pro-lifers have been instrumental in saving unborn babies and moms from abortion in many ways, not just through legislation. Pregnancy resource centers, sidewalk counselors, pro-life education organizations and others have helped support and inform women in their decisions to choose life for their babies. As a result, fewer women are choosing abortion.

A 2016 Bloomberg analysis suggested that abortion clinics are closing because demand for their deadly business is dropping. Abortion rates are falling to historic lows across America, including in liberal states where lawmakers promote abortion on demand. In 2014, abortions in the U.S. dropped below 1 million for the first time since 1975, the Guttmacher Institute reported. The numbers have continued to decline over the past several years, according to Centers for Disease Control reports.

The Bloomberg analysis also suggested that abortion clinics are closing because fewer doctors are willing to be abortionists. Several abortion facilities closed between 2011 and 2015 because they could not find a doctor willing to do abortions after their current one retired or was deemed “unfit” to practice, according to the report.

This is what appears to have been the case in West Virginia in 2017. Kanawha Surgicenter, an abortion facility in Charleston, closed permanently after its abortionist, Gorli Harish, retired and moved to California. Apparently the abortion clinic either could not find another abortionist to replace him or did not think it profitable to continue the business. Since then, West Virginia has had just one abortion clinic.

Between 2011 and 2015, at least 162 abortion clinics closed or stopped doing abortions; 21 new abortion clinics opened in the same time period, according to Bloomberg. A report from Operation Rescue showed 53 abortion clinics closed in 2015, and an additional 40 closed in 2018.