More than 200 abortion facilities could close across the United States if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer and allows states to protect unborn babies from abortion again.
Bloomberg reports the estimate comes from a new study by Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) at the University of California San Francisco.
According to the study, 202 abortion facilities (more than 25 percent) likely would close if the high court overturns Roe, as many expect will happen this summer through the Mississippi abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.
These facilities are located in states that are expected to protect unborn babies by banning or strictly limiting abortions without Roe in the way. Already some are closing, and hundreds of thousands of unborn babies could be saved from abortion as a result.
In 2021, there were 790 abortion facilities in the U.S., up from 749 in 2018, the ANSIRH researchers found. Most of the new facilities that opened in that period were “telehealth,” meaning they sell abortion drugs to women with little to no medical supervision.
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The researchers largely attributed the uptick to the Biden administration, which began allowing abortion facilities to sell abortion drugs through the mail without ever seeing the woman.
A separate, new report from the Guttmacher Institute found that abortion numbers increased in that same period, and approximately 930,000 unborn babies were aborted in 2020.
The states with the largest number of abortion facilities in 2021 were California (168), New York (89) and Florida (55), according to the ANSIRH study. However, the Florida situation may change after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a 15-week abortion ban into law this spring; the law is slated to go into effect July 1 and could save thousands of babies’ lives.
Meanwhile, six states had one abortion facility: Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming, the researchers found. All or most of these could close if the Supreme Court overturns Roe.
Another interesting finding, the researchers pointed out that the billion-dollar abortion chain Planned Parenthood now runs more than half of all abortion facilities in the U.S. Its most recent annual report also showed a record number of abortions, more than 354,000, in 2019.
Though ANSIHR has a clear pro-abortion bias, the researchers also acknowledged in the new study that, while some women may travel to other states for abortions, others will have their babies instead. And another study by researchers at the same university found that, overwhelmingly, women who were denied abortions later were glad they did not abort their unborn babies.
Many expect the high court will release its final ruling on the Dobbs case in June.
Polls consistently show that most Americans support stronger legal protections for unborn babies than what Roe allows. LifeNews highlighted 11 recent polls here. A new Rasmussen poll shows more Americans want Roe v. Wade overturned (48 percent) than want the ruling to remain in place (45 percent).
Since Roe in 1973, more than 63 million unborn babies and hundreds of mothers have died in supposedly “safe, legal” abortions.
