66 abortion clinics have stopped providing abortions after Roe overturned

Over 60 abortion clinics across the country no longer provide abortions since the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June, according to a report released Thursday.

The Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health and rights NGO, reported that it found 14 states where all clinics have ceased abortion services, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A total of 66 clinics across 15 states have been forced to stop offering abortions, said the report.

Guttmacher said that those 15 states had 79 clinics that performed abortions prior to the SCOTUS ruling on June 24. The 13 that remain open as of Oct. 2 are all located in Georgia, which has a “heartbeat” law that bans abortions after about six weeks.

The report detailed that 40 clinic are still open and offering other sexual and reproductive health services while 26 have closed entirely.

The states where clinics have stopped performing abortions are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Georgia, the only state surveyed where clinics continue to provide abortions, recently announced that in-state residents can claim embryos and human fetuses with a “detectable human heartbeat” as dependents on their tax returns this year.

Researchers at Guttmacher estimate that 22 million women of reproductive age (15 to 49) live in these 15 states.

Some shuttered clinics have reopened or plan to in nearby states where abortion is still legal, reports the Wall Street Journal. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in Mississippi, the clinic at the center of the Supreme Court decision that the constitution does not confer a right to abortion, has closed and reopened in Las Cruces, New Mexico, said its owner.

Guttmacher warned that the list of clinic closures is likely to grow as legal battles play out at the state level.

Antiabortion groups see the report as an encouraging sign for the future.  

“When an abortion facility closes, that hopefully means more babies will live,” Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, told WSJ.