Abortion clinics decline 'slightly' in pro-abortion states

The Guttmacher Institute claims new data shows a 2% decrease of brick-and-mortar abortion facilities in pro-abortion states.

Key Takeaways:

• Along with a slight decrease in pro-abortion states, Guttmacher says 51 abortion facilities open in March 2024 were no longer open in December 2025, "while 39 clinics that were not open or did not provide care in March 2024 were doing so in late 2025."

• The group added that "[n]ationally, the absolute number of brick-and-mortar clinics declined by 12" in that timeframe.

• The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute says brick-and-mortar abortion businesses decreased by 2% in states with largely unrestricted abortion.

• The group noted that decreasing funding decreases abortion access (and in that same vein, increasing funding increases access), and virtual abortion pill dispensaries and shield laws have also increased the number of abortions.

The Details:

'Slight' decline in pro-abortion states

According to Guttmacher, "by the end of 2025, the number of brick-and-mortar abortion clinics in pro-abortion states had declined by 2% compared to March 2024."

This has occurred even while states are increasingly funding abortion providers.

Guttmacher wrote in an e-mail:

New Guttmacher data show that the number of clinics in states without total abortion bans declined 2%, from 765 in 2024 to 753 in 2025. This net decrease, while small, masks substantial changes or “churn” in abortion access, as many clinics paused or resumed abortion provision or closed or opened their doors in response to new regulatory, financial and staffing challenges. For example, 51 clinic facilities that provided abortion care in March 2024 no longer did so in December 2025, while 39 clinic facilities that were not open or did not provide abortion care in March 2024 were doing so in late 2025.

"Nationwide, the number of clinics in states without total bans declined 2%, from 765 in 2024 to 753 in 2025. Most state-level patterns reflected similarly small changes, and only nine states had a net increase or decrease of more than one clinic," Guttmacher wrote.

States with abortion facility increases

"Four states had increases of more than one clinic," Guttmacher claimed.

• Massachusetts: six additional, 25% increase.

• Missouri: three clinics compared to zero in March 2024.

• Ohio: three additional, 33% increase.

• Virginia: two additional, 11% increase.

At the time of the March 2024 clinic count, Missouri had a total abortion ban in effect. In November 2024, voters amended the state constitution to protect abortion rights, but ongoing litigation resulted in a series of pauses and resumptions of care. Missouri’s clinics resumed care in July 2025 and three were operating in December 2025.

States with abortion facility decreases

Five states had decreases of more than one clinic, wrote the pro-abortion organization.

Other decreases were notable. For example, in Washington, D.C., where Cesar Santangelo formerly operated, one brick-and-mortar clinic closed, resulting in a 25% decrease; Utah was the same. Alaska and Nebraska's one clinic closure each resulted in a 33% decrease in those states, whereas Nevada's one closure resulted in a 12% decrease. In Vermont, the state's one closure resulted in a 20% decrease. The report added:

The decrease in Florida clinics was likely due to the 6-week gestational ban that went into effect in the state in May 2024. California, Illinois, Michigan and New York did not make any major changes to state policies that would directly impact the provision of abortion care.

Overall, Guttmacher claims that there was a 12-clinic national decrease in brick-and-mortars.

Methodology

"While the abortion access landscape has shifted dramatically in recent years, brick-and-mortar clinics continue to play a critical role in both procedural and medication abortion provision. In the first half of 2025, such clinics accounted for approximately 80% of the abortions that were provided in the 37 states without total abortion bans," wrote Guttmacher.

Guttmacher's analysis defined "brick-and-mortar clinics" as "physical facilities...that routinely offer abortion care," including:

• hospital-affiliated outpatient facilities (which typically have higher abortion caseloads than hospitals).

• physicians’ offices that provide more than 400 abortions per year.

It did not include "hospitals (sites where abortions are often provided in operating rooms); physicians' offices offering fewer than 400 abortions per year; or online-only clinics that offer medication abortion services without a physical location."

Reality Check:

Removing funding decreases abortion access

Previous Guttmacher research documented that funding abortion increases abortion, so it was no surprise that Guttmacher unwittingly also demonstrated that removing taxpayer funds decreases abortion access.

Guttmacher's analysis bemoaned the "federal withholding of Title X funds" from abortion facilities such as Planned Parenthood as "likely contribut[ing] to the decline in clinic numbers" in Michigan, at least.

"It is likely that an array of policy, organizational, and financial factors influenced trends in the other states," Guttmacher added.

Last July, lawmakers approved the Trump Administration's "Big Beautiful Bill" which defunded larger abortion providers like Planned Parenthood for one year from receiving Medicaid dollars. Planned Parenthood was already bleeding cash before the defund went into effect.

Guttmacher wrote:

Wisconsin provides a useful example of clinic churn. The state had four clinics that provided abortion care in March 2024, and a new clinic opened in June 2025. On October 1, 2025, three Planned Parenthood facilities paused abortion care in response to the Trump administration’s new Medicaid restrictions, leaving two independent clinics providing care.

The three Planned Parenthood facilities, which had continued to provide other types of sexual and reproductive health care, resumed abortion services by November 2025. Thus, the absolute increase of one clinic in Wisconsin masks a substantial amount of churn.

While the defund effort was tied up in court, Planned Parenthood announced that “nearly 200 of their facilities would be “at risk of closure.” In September it acknowledged that 50 Planned Parenthoods’ have been "forced to close." This year, Planned Parenthood already announced additional closures in Pennsylvania, Texas, Missouri, and Florida. 

Over $200 million of Planned Parenthood’s revenue is from abortion alone. Yet, Planned Parenthood collectively received billions in federal funding in past years while skirting federal regulations under programs like Title X and Medicaid, which should immediately disqualify them from being funded.

Documented cases of abuse, scandal, fraud, racism, pregnancy discrimination, breaches of privacy, and Medicaid fraud have piled up against Planned Parenthood — all of which violate federal requirements for obtaining taxpayer funding. 

Virtual abortion dispensaries replacing brick-and-mortars

Guttmacher Institute researchers recently acknowledged that telehealth abortion has contributed to increased abortion numbers since the end of Roe v. Wade.

Guttmacher's latest report indicated:

As of February 2026, there are at least 25 online-only clinics providing remote abortion care in the 28 states (plus DC) that have neither a total abortion ban nor other restrictions (e.g., gestational duration bans or bans on mailing pills) that prohibit the provision of telehealth abortion. In the first half of 2025, these online-only clinics accounted for approximately 20% of abortions in these jurisdictions.

Long before the one-year defund took effect, Planned Parenthood was "restructuring" to focus on its online business by opening multiple Virtual Health Centers, consolidate facilities, and lay off staff — all while still operating approximately 500 brick and mortar facilities across this country.

Planned Parenthood, which leads the nation in how abortions will be committed and sold, knows that consolidating brick-and-mortar facilities will cut costs; its collective shift toward telemedicine abortion — even in the most pro-abortion states — was planned long ago.

Currently, at least 70% of its abortion business is via the abortion pill.

Shield laws increase abortions

Guttmacher's analysis demonstrates how illegally shipping abortion pills into pro-life states violates those state's sovereignty to defend their laws. In 2023, the Biden-era Food and Drug Administration (FDA) eroded REMS safety regulations by removing the in-person dispensing requirement for the abortion pill. This allowed it to be shipped by mail and dispensed in pharmacies. Guttmacher wrote:

As recently as 2020, these [brick and mortar] facilities were the only way to access clinician-provided abortion care in the United States.

That changed in 2021, when the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) removed the in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone, one of two drugs used in most medication abortions. Since then, medication abortion provided through telehealth has become increasingly common...and for those living in abortion-restrictive states, it can be one of the only ways to access clinician-provided care.

A brief recently filed by 60 lawmakers in the State of Louisiana's lawsuit challenging the FDA's 2023 erosions claimed those changes were deliberate "precisely so that abortionists in pro-abortion states could prescribe and mail abortion drugs to women or girls in pro-life states with tighter regulations on these drugs."

They added, "This action contravenes federal laws passed by the elected representatives of the American people. It also contravenes state laws prohibiting abortion, such as Louisiana’s, even though 'the authority to regulate abortion' belongs to 'the people and their elected representatives,' not unelected bureaucrats."

Shield laws have been passed in multiple states, allowing online abortion pill dispensaries to ignore other states' laws protecting preborn children and protecting those abortion pill providers from legal actions taken against them.

The Bottom Line:

Guttmacher's 753 number differs slightly from a survey conducted in December by the pro-life group Operation Rescue which found that there were 657 abortion facilities operating in the United States.

But, even with the difference, the new numbers still show that, as previously documented by Live Action News, pro-life Pregnancy Help Centers (PHC) continue to outnumber abortion facilities by a ratio of nearly 4:1.