Since 2014, more than 130 abortion clinics across the country have shut their doors, according to a pro-abortion group. Pro-life activists will celebrate the fact that there are fewer "clinics" killing unborn babies. However, abortion activists have argued that pro-life laws are intended to close clinics, not to protect women and babies. The Abortion Care Network identified 136 independent abortion clinics — unaffiliated with Planned Parenthood — that closed since 2014. In that year, 23 clinics closed. In 2015, another 34 shuttered. Twenty-two more followed in 2016, then 17 in 2017 and 13 in 2018. So far this year, another 26 clinics have permanently ceased operations, the organization reported.
These findings are broadly consistent with a January 2019 report from the pro-life group Operation Rescue. That report found that 40 clinics had shut down in 2018, 32 of which provided surgical abortions while the other eight performed non-surgical or "medical" abortions.
Operation Rescue put the number of abortion clinics in the U.S. at 697 by the end of 2018 — about 150 fewer than the 844 clinics reported in 2009. This represented an even larger drop from 1991 when there were 2,176 surgical abortion clinics nationwide.
"This represents a massive 79 percent decrease in the number of surgical abortion facilities over the past 27 years," Operation Rescue noted at the time.
Some abortion clinics have merely changed the way in which they kill unborn babies. "Unable or unwilling to meet new surgical facility safety regulations, some have resorted to dropping surgical abortions as perhaps their only means of staying open — especially in states that do not regulate medical abortion clinics or that allow nonphysicians to dispense the drugs," Operation Rescue added.
