Report: Nearly two dozen independent abortion businesses closed in 2023

The closure of nearly two dozen “independent abortion clinics” (IAC’s) has been attributed to the enactment of pro-life laws in several states. IAC’s or “Indies” as they are often called, exclude Planned Parenthood facilities, hospitals, and physician’s offices.

The information comes from a report just published by the Abortion Care Network (ACN), which also claimed that 32% of brick and mortar independent facilities in the United States have closed since 2012 and that 139 IAC’s were “forced to close or stop providing abortion between 2018 – 2023.”

ACN says independent abortion businesses provide the “majority of abortions in the U.S.,” operating “60 percent of the abortion clinics in the states that are most politically hostile to abortion,” all while “over 35 percent of U.S. counties” lacked “sufficient access to prenatal and maternity care.”

WARNING: Disturbing image below.

Independent Abortion Facilities Closed Due to Pro-life Laws

ACN attributed the closures to the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the enactment of pro-life laws or restrictions in multiple states across the U.S., claiming in the report that “14 states have no abortion clinic at all.”

“There are several reasons for clinic closures, with the overturning of Roe v Wade and the flood of abortion bans and restrictions that followed in 2022 and 2023 being the clearest and most immediate,” ACN wrote. “In 2022, 14 states enacted abortion bans sweeping enough to force all the clinics in those states to close or stop providing abortions. In 2023 alone, 53 laws restricting access to abortion care have been enacted.”

ACN added, “Even in states where abortion remains legal, medically unnecessary restrictions, financial barriers associated with operating a health center, and the constant work of protecting against anti-abortion extremism make it challenging for many clinics to keep their doors open at all.”

ACN’s report also claimed that 55% of abortion procedures were committed by independent abortion businesses, 41% by Planned Parenthood, 3% by physicians’ offices and 1% by hospitals — the same percentage breakdown as previous years.

“Although independent abortion providers represent about 24 percent of all facilities offering abortion care, they provide 55 percent of all abortion procedures nationwide,” the ACN report stated.

In addition, according to ACN, “Independent clinics often host medical residencies and other clinician training programs.”

23 IACs Closed in 2023

“When Abortion Care Network started tracking clinic closures in 2012, we identified 510 brick-and-mortar independent abortion clinics in the U.S. As of October 2023, ACN identified 489 independent abortion clinics, just 346 of which are brick-and-mortar clinics. While there have been many online-only clinic openings since 2020 and a handful of brick-and-mortar clinic openings over the last decade, the overall number of brick-and mortar independent clinics in the U.S. has decreased by 32 percent since 2012,” claims ACN’s report, “Abortion Care Network (2023). Communities Need Clinics: The Abortion Care Ecosystem Depends on Independent Clinics.”

“Abortion Care Network identified 139 independent abortion clinic closures between 2018 and 2023. Thirteen independent [abortion] clinics closed in 2018; 27 closed in 2019; 14 closed in 2020; 20 closed in 2021; 42 closed in 2022,” the report stated. “As of October 2023, we have confirmed 23 independent clinic closures in 2023.”

Live Action News previously documented that the number of abortion facilities had been cut nearly in half since the 1980s.

A recently published Operation Rescue (OR) survey, which likely includes both independent abortion clinics as well as Planned Parenthood facilities, states that “In 2023, 49 abortion clinics closed or halted abortions. Between 2022 and 2023, a total of 136 abortion clinics have stopped killing. Cities that had abortion mills in full operation are now abortion free! When clinics close, babies are saved!”

According to OR president Troy Newman, that closure number is a “huge 69% decrease since 1991 when 2,176 abortion clinics were operating.”

“Indies” Provide All Third Trimester Abortions 

The report claimed that independent abortion clinics “make up 61 percent of all U.S. clinics that provide abortion after the first trimester,” 86% of all abortion facilities which commit abortions at or after 22 weeks of pregnancy, and 100% of third trimester abortion facilities that commit abortions at or after 26 weeks.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2021, “among the 41 areas that reported gestational age at the time of abortion, 80.8% of abortions were performed at ≤9 weeks’ gestation, and 93.5% were performed at ≤13 weeks’ gestation.” Estimates from Guttmacher’s 2020 published abortion totals of 930,160 abortions revealed that approximately 58.6K to 68.8K abortions are committed every year at or after 15 weeks, in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.

Abortion at or after the 21st week of pregnancy is estimated to be about 1% of all abortions. The CDC’s abortion data, which is not as comprehensive as Guttmacher’s, indicates that 4,070 preborn babies were aborted at or past 21 weeks of pregnancy in 2021. However, estimates from the Guttmacher Institute’s 2020 reported abortion totals indicate that approximately 9,301 babies were aborted at or after 21 weeks of pregnancy.

More recent #WeCount numbers for June 2022-June 2023 show the estimate could be as high as 10,722 babies slaughtered at or after 21 weeks, when they could potentially have survived outside the womb.

Majority of “Indies” Commit both Surgical and Chemical Abortion

According to the ACN, “Seventy three percent of brick-and-mortar independent clinics offer both medication and in-clinic abortion care, as compared to Planned Parenthood, where both medication and in-clinic abortion care are available at only 42 percent of affiliated clinics.”

ACN also claimed that just 26% of “indies” offered medication only while 58% of Planned Parenthood brick and mortar abortion facilities did the same.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) data published through the end of December of 2022, showed that, since 2000, the estimated number of women who have used the abortion pill (mifepristone) in the U.S. for “medical termination of pregnancy” has now reached 5.9 million.

Unregulated Virtual Abortion Dispensaries 

“As entire states and regions are left without brick-and-mortar clinics, indies have shown themselves to be innovators, operating 100 percent of online-only clinics (also referred to as telemedicine-only clinics) in the U.S.,” the ACN report claimed.

Virtual abortion businesses are far more profitable because they require fewer overhead costs and are largely unregulated. In addition, online abortion businesses often offer the abortion pill regimen to minors while providing less than a few minutes of implied care with little to no follow-up.

The report indicated there were 143 online abortion dispensaries operating in 2023 (346 out of 489 independent abortion clinics were brick-and-mortars), nearly 43 more than what ACN estimated in 2022.

“While the number of online clinics has increased dramatically over the last three years, this mode of abortion provision is not available in 18 states that ban abortion via telemedicine or ban abortion completely; additional states have restrictions onerous enough that online provision is logistically impossible,” ACN claimed.

ACN’s 2023 annual report used data gathered from July through October 15, 2023 on “publicly available search engines and clinic directories to identify providers” where “each independent clinic is contacted for operational status and information on the scope of services provided.” ACN was founded by leaders of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers (NCAP) and the Abortion Conversation Project (ACP).

ACN’s 2023 independent abortion clinics report was published in partnership with ineedanA.com, the Guttmacher Institute, and Ibis Reproductive Health, the report noted.